Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: THE United States has delivered critical military supplies to Nigeria to bolster the West African nation’s operations against militants, the US military’s Africa Command (AFRICOM) said on January 13. The delivery came after the US carried out a strike targeting Islamic State militants in northwest Nigeria last month.
AFRICOM said in a post on X that the delivery in the Nigerian capital Abuja “supports Nigeria’s ongoing operations and emphasises our shared security partnership”.
Last month, AFRICOM said the US military had carried out an airstrike in Sokoto state in coordination with Nigerian authorities and had killed multiple Islamic State militants. Nigeria’s foreign ministry said the strike was part of ongoing security cooperation with the US, involving intelligence sharing and strategic coordination to target militant groups.
The US had been conducting intelligence-gathering flights over large parts of Nigeria since late November. The December bombings marked a turnaround after relations collapsed late last year when Trump described violence in Nigeria as “persecution” and “genocide” against Christians. A few days before the US strikes, Nigeria’s information minister said that the “dispute” with Washington had been resolved, “resulting in a strengthened partnership between America and Nigeria.”
Nigeria is still classified as a “country of particular concern,” by the US State Department, owing to alleged violations of religious freedom. Africa’s most populous country, roughly divided between a predominantly Muslim north and a predominantly Christian south, faces multiple, sometimes overlapping armed conflicts, including a jihadist insurgency that has been ongoing since 2009. Southeast separatists, who have long maintained a lobbying presence in Washington, have also used the “Christian genocide” narrative.