U.S. Military Launches Airstrikes Against Islamic State Militants in Western Nigeria

What Happened?

According to the Trump Administration, U.S. military forces launched an unspecified number of airstrikes against militants of the Islamic State in western Nigeria. General Dagvin Anderson, commander of U.S. Africa Command, issued a statement saying ‘U.S. Africa Command is working to increase counterterrorism cooperation efforts related to on-going violence and threats against innocent lives’ in western Nigeria. 

Nigerian Foreign Minister Yusuf Maitama Tuggar said the attacks represented a ‘joint operation’ and had ‘nothing to do with a particular religion.’ The targets hit were in Sokoto state, which is in northwestern Nigeria near the border with Niger.

Why it Matters

Nigeria is Africa’s most populous nation with nearly two hundred and forty million people. Nigeria also contains Africa’s largest oil reserves and is estimated to hold the tenth-largest amount of oil reserves in the world. Due to a rapidly expanding population, increasing income from oil production, and poor governance because of corruption, Nigeria suffers from widespread poverty, instability, and insecurity. 

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As the U.S. military learned in Iraq and Afghanistan, poverty, corruption, and insecurity are ideal conditions for terrorist groups to operate and grow. In areas that are poorly governed, like western Nigeria, terrorist groups often come in and take control of towns and villages because they have more money and weapons than local authorities. Terrorist groups see these types of locations as fertile recruiting grounds to find new members, grow their organizations, and spread extremist ideologies.

The Trump Administration’s claims that Islamic State militants are killing Christians in western Nigeria are likely true but incomplete. Those same terrorist groups also indiscriminately kill Muslims who reject their extreme interpretation of Islam. With a swelling population, land is becoming scarce in Nigeria, and as a result, Christian and Muslim farmers often fight to control a shrinking supply of territory. Farmers have committed slaughters against each other, some backed by terrorist groups, but some not. 

Drawing on lessons from the decade long global war on terrorism, the U.S. military is aware that limited airstrikes will do little to discourage terrorist groups. Usually, all such strikes accomplish is to cause the groups to relocate to nearby villages or towns, where they often carry out reprisals against civilians for the attacks committed against them. Rooting out terrorism from western Nigeria is a legitimate security goal, but that cannot be accomplished by airstrikes. 

How it Affects You

The limited ability of the U.S. to influence events in Africa can be understood by looking at the location of its Africa Command, which is headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany, because no African nation was willing to host it. If Nigeria addresses the underlying conditions that allow terrorist groups to thrive, then U.S. airstrikes can be an asset to that effort. But if Nigerian authorities do little to improve conditions, U.S. military actions are likely to accomplish nothing.