Joris Bolomey/AFP via Getty Images
The United States intensified its military operations in Nigeria last week in coordination with Nigerian forces, with both sides saying they killed 175 members of Islamic State and its local affiliate, Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP).
The strikes come after joint air and ground operations that killed Abu Bilal al-Minuki, one of the most senior leaders of the Islamic State internationally. US forces reported that they had tried to capture al-Minuki but ended up killing him in a helicopter air strike when he refused to surrender, News.Az reports, citing Socialist Worker.
US president Donald Trump said, “He will no longer terrorise the people of Africa, or help plan operations to target Americans.”
Trump has repeatedly raised fears of a Muslim threat to Nigerian Christians. And claims of a genocide against Christians in the West African country have circulated on the far right in the US.
On Christmas Day last year, the US air strikes targeted the Lakurawa militant group in the north-west state of Sokoto, near the border with Niger.
“I’d love to make it a one-time strike”, said Trump. “But if they continue to kill Christians it will be a many-time strike.”
The air strikes have repeatedly killed civilians. Last month an attack aimed at Islamist insurgents hit the Jilli market in Yobe in the north-east, massacring over 100 people including children.
Iswap is active in the north-east of Nigeria, as well as Boko Haram and other Islamist groups.
But the insecurity crisis that Nigerians face impacts Christians, Muslims and others, and not just in the Muslim-majority north.
Small “bandit” groups have kidnapped people and held them to ransom in order to try to secure wealth in a country where social support is collapsing.
In other cases conflict has been driven by access to raw materials, including gold, copper and lithium.
The Nigerian state has done little to address the rise of criminal groups. Instead it has cracked down on protesters and activists.
As Trump’s imperialist wars in the Middle East fail, he is looking for influence in Africa and has found an ally in Nigeria’s president Bola Tinubu.
But the Alliance of Sahel States, led by Burkina Faso’s Ibrahim Traore and also including nearby Mali and Niger have all cut ties with the West and expelled US and French forces from their territories.
The latest air strikes are an escalation in geopolitical tensions that will leave ordinary Africans in the firing line.
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