America’s War on Terror, Revisited

On December 25, 2025, the United States launched strikes on some specific targets in Sokoto State, northwestern Nigeria. Fired from its naval assets in the Gulf of Guinea, approximately 16 GPS-guided precision munitions, including Tomahawk cruise missiles, were launched. Some landed in the Bauni forest near Nigeria’s border with the Niger Republic, while others struck locations including a farmland in Jabo village and in Kwara State, in the country’s North Central region. 

The Nigerian government said the strike was carried out at its request in a “joint operation”, marking one of the clearest instances of direct American military action on Nigerian soil. 

In the weeks before the action, surveillance drones had repeatedly loitered over parts of the North East and North West, signalling a level of intelligence activity that went beyond routine cooperation. The strike, which HumAngle’s investigation found to have killed nobody, has so far not been followed by any. But recently, the US president, Donald Trump, said Nigeria will see more if Christians “continue to be killed”. 

For northern Nigeria, long trapped in a grinding war against multiple non-state armed groups such as Boko Haram, Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), IS-Sahel (locally referred to as Lakurawa), and other local terror groups, the incident raised a pressing question: What kind of American war on terror is about to arrive? And, judging by US interventions elsewhere, what does history suggest it will bring to the region? 

For more than two decades, the United States has fought non-state actors across the Middle East, the Horn of Africa, and the Sahel. The outcomes have ranged from tactical victories to strategic collapse. Nigeria now stands at the edge of this long and uneven history, watching closely and wondering which version of America’s counter-terrorism playbook it might inherit.

This analysis examines whether US intervention tends to contain violence or merely reshape it, and what that history suggests for a country already grappling with deep social fractures. As Nigeria edges closer to direct American military action, the central issue is not whether the US can strike militants, but whether its involvement will stabilise an already fragile conflict or further entrench it.

How the US has fought terror elsewhere

In Iraq and Syria, the US response to the rise of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, in 2014 was deliberately constrained. America avoided a large-scale occupation, instead leading a multinational coalition that relied on airpower, intelligence dominance, and partnerships with local forces, including the Iraqi military and Kurdish fighters. 

The goal was not to remake the state but to degrade ISIS’s ability to hold territory, and it was largely successful. By 2019, the group’s so-called caliphate had collapsed, although ISIS itself was not eliminated. Today, the group survives through attacks on rural and border regions between Iraq and Syria, forcing many of its members to migrate to other locations, particularly in Africa, where IS encouraged its members to migrate.

James Bernett, a Nigeria-based researcher who specialises in African conflicts and armed groups, argues that the outcome reflected design rather than chance. “Not all US military interventions are the same,” he explained. “Those with more limited scopes, clear targets, stronger regional cooperation, and coordination with competent local forces are more likely to be successful than open-ended interventions with more nebulous strategic objectives.”

Afghanistan followed the opposite path. What began in 2001 as a focused mission to dismantle Al-Qaeda gradually expanded into a prolonged attempt to secure territory, build institutions, and reshape governance. Despite nearly two decades of operations and trillions of dollars spent, the Taliban returned to power shortly after US forces withdrew in 2021. 

Analysts said that the collapse exposed the limits of foreign military power in contexts where political legitimacy is weak and local institutions remain fragile.

In Somalia, US involvement in the longest American counter-terrorism operation has been narrower but no less revealing. Since 2003 when the first US operation against Al-Shabab was recorded under President George W. Bush, the war against the group has continued to date. 

American strategy in Somalia has relied primarily on drone strikes and support for regional partners against Al-Shabab. While senior militant leaders have been killed, the group remains resilient, violence persists, and governance remains fragile. Under Trump’s current administration, airstrikes increased dramatically, with more than 125 declared strikes in Somalia in 2025 alone—far exceeding previous years, including Trump’s first term. This marks the highest annual figure since the major offensive began in 2007.

Despite progress recorded elsewhere, especially in Mogadishu, which was previously controlled by Al-Shabaab, the group still controls over 30 per cent of Somalia and continues to push towards the capital. Al-Shabab is arguably the most successful Al-Qaeda affiliate in the world after Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM).

A somewhat similar pattern emerged in the Sahel. Despite years of US and allied counter-terrorism efforts, jihadist groups expanded across Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. Foreign military engagement coincided with coups, political instability, and growing public resentment toward external actors. 

More recently, the United States has significantly scaled back its direct military presence and large-scale counterterrorism operations in the core Sahel region due to the expulsion of Western forces by the ruling juntas. Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso have now pivoted toward partnerships with Russia via the Africa Corps (formerly Wagner) for security support, while rejecting or limiting US and French involvement. 

However, the US, although not having fighters on the ground, still engages in some intelligence sharing to counter the threats from what it described as the “epicentre of global terrorism”. 

Bernett places these cases within a broader pattern. Where interventions lack clarity or rely on weak local partners, he argues, violence is often “reshaped rather than resolved”. Nigeria’s case differs in one key respect: the government has welcomed US support, while simultaneously seeking changes in tactics.

The withdrawal of Western forces from the Sahel has emboldened jihadist groups. Mali, in particular, is struggling to contain JNIM, the Al-Qaeda affiliate that’s blocking fuel imports and advancing towards the country’s capital, Bamako.

A signal or a strategy?

The sustained presence of US surveillance drones over northern Nigeria in late 2025 suggested a deepening intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance effort, rather than a fleeting show of interest.

The Christmas Day strikes reinforced that impression. President Trump framed the operation as a response to extremist violence and what he described as the persecution of Christians, language that immediately reverberated within Nigeria’s already polarised political landscape.

Malik Samuel, a Nigerian security researcher, told HumAngle that such rhetoric risks undermining the US counter-terrorism operation by “setting one religious group against another, as has been seen before”. 

Trump has repeatedly framed the entirety of Nigeria’s conflicts as a Christian genocide in Nigeria, a narrative that has been widely debunked and is seen to likely cast US intervention in a negative light—especially in the Muslim majority areas in the northern region, where terrorism has been most severe and misinformation about US intervention is prevalent. Although President Trump recently acknowledged that Muslims are also being killed, he continues to emphasise religious persecution as a major reason behind his intervention.

For several local security analysts, such as Bernett, this ambiguity is itself a warning sign. “The lack of clarity over what the US military objectives are in Nigeria raises the spectre of mission creep and a more open-ended and indecisive US military presence,” he cautions, one that could begin to resemble Somalia or the Sahel.

At the same time, he notes that the strikes may have been largely symbolic. After an initial show of force, the US may retreat to behind-the-scenes support, particularly as West Africa “is not much of a priority for the administration on the whole”. 

This interpretation appears consistent with developments on Tuesday, January 13, when the US, through its Africa Command (AFRICOM), announced that it had supplied military equipment to the Nigerian armed forces for counterterrorism operations. Although the nature of the equipment was not disclosed, the move suggests that the US intends to work with the Nigerian government rather than acting unilaterally, an approach that has historically yielded limited success in counterterrorism efforts.

Whether signal or strategy, the strikes nonetheless marked a shift. For years, US involvement in Nigeria’s security crisis had been indirect, centred on arms sales, training, and intelligence sharing. The December 25 operation moved Nigeria closer to the category of countries where the US is willing to act directly, even if cautiously.

Yet Nigeria’s security crisis predates foreign attention and is unlikely to be resolved by it alone. What began in 2009 with Boko Haram’s uprising has since metastasised into a complex web of conflicts across much of the country’s northern region. 

Despite sustained military operations, the Nigerian state has struggled to impose lasting control. Airstrikes have killed commanders but rarely dismantled networks. Ground operations remain constrained by logistics, allegations of human rights abuses, and deep mistrust between communities and security forces.

If the US continues with airstrikes, it will lead to problems, ranging from mistakenly hitting civilians instead of terrorists to opening up opportunities for terrorists to launch attacks on the population. If this happens, achieving the expected success will be difficult because locals will avoid engaging with the operation.

This environment, Bernett warns, is particularly vulnerable to retaliation dynamics. “There are indications that jihadist militants in both the North West and the North East have been targeting civilians, including Christians, in retaliation for the airstrikes,” he said. The pattern mirrors Nigeria’s own past experience, where terrorists “punish civilians after getting hit” and exploit any civilian casualties for propaganda and recruitment.

This is what happened after the US attack in Sokoto. Villagers told HumAngle that Lakurawa terrorists increasingly sought refuge within civilian settlements, avoiding the Bauni Mountains where they usually operate. This suggests that the terrorists are using civilians as cover, so that if another attack occurs, many innocent civilians are likely to lose their lives.

Airpower alone, he adds, is “hardly ever decisive in defeating insurgencies” and can even trigger short-term spikes in violence if not paired with effective ground coordination and civilian protection.

Christians have been targeted in brutal attacks, but Muslims have also been killed in large numbers by the same militant groups. Entire Muslim communities have been displaced or accused of complicity. Analysts warn that jihadist groups are adept at exploiting polarising narratives, turning rhetoric into a recruitment tool.

Samuel believes that even if the US proceeds with a ground operation, it will not achieve the success it seeks because, from the start, the issue was approached in the wrong way. “If the problem had been framed as a fight solely against terrorists, almost everyone would have welcomed it, as they would have seen it as a call for help,” he noted. 

Nigeria differs in important ways from past theatres of US intervention. It is not a collapsed state propped up by foreign forces, as Afghanistan was, it retains functioning national institutions and regional influence, in contrast to Somalia. Its military is large, experienced, and politically embedded, even if its effectiveness is uneven.

The conflict itself is also more fragmented. Armed actors pursue overlapping but distinct agendas shaped by local grievances, economic desperation, and regional instability. Any attempt to impose a single counter-terrorism framework risks misunderstanding the violence it seeks to confront.

Religion further complicates the picture. Nigeria is almost evenly divided between Muslims and Christians, and both communities have suffered devastating losses. External narratives that frame the conflict primarily as religious persecution risk inflaming tensions and erasing shared suffering.

At the local level, Bernett warns, foreign strikes risk “further undermining trust between communities and the state or between Muslims and Christians”, particularly in areas where state presence is already minimal.

Nationally, Nigeria is deeply polarised, with tensions likely to rise ahead of the 2027 elections. US strikes, Bernett notes, will become part of Nigeria’s political discourse, shaped not only by America’s actions but also by domestic actors seeking advantage.

What comes next

Bernett is sceptical that Washington is prepared for a sustained commitment. “I’m quite doubtful that the US government will dedicate the resources, bandwidth, and patience to degrading any militant group decisively over the long haul,” he says. 

The Christmas strikes, he adds, were “flashy” and accompanied by bold rhetoric that may raise expectations the US is unlikely to meet.

If American involvement remains limited, discreet, and tightly coordinated, it may help disrupt specific threats. If it expands without clarity, legitimacy, or attention to civilian harm, it risks deepening instability.

Ultimately, Nigeria’s long war will not be decided by drones or warplanes alone. Its future hinges on governance, trust, and political choices that no foreign power can impose. America’s experience elsewhere suggests that how it fights matters as much as whether it fights at all.