Submission statement: Jihadists have murdered at least 162 (per the Red Cross) Muslim villagers in the western Nigerian state of Kwara, allegedly for refusing to join their group. The massacre is the latest in a string of deadly attacks against civilians in Africa's most populous country, which is struggling with several overlapping security crises; a long-running insurgency by Boko Haram in the Northeast, the rise of ISWAP, the confirmed presence of Al-Qaeda affiliated JNIM, a surge in banditry in the Northwest, and broader land conflicts throughout its Middle Belt.
Kwara State's governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq said on Tuesday that the attack was a reprisal for counter-terrorism operations in the region, led jointly between Nigerian and US forces. Africom's commander Dagvin Anderson confirmed on the same day for the first time that US ground troops had been deployed in Nigeria to support the central government, notably to help them gather intelligence and conduct strikes against jihadist groups.
Last year, US President Donald Trump accused Abuja of covering up a "Christian genocide" by Islamists, repeating a common far-right disinformation effort – that also targeted South Africa's government in the form of a false "White genocide" – and threatening the Nigerian government with reprisals. Since then, the US and Nigeria have deepened military cooperation against jihadist groups, an indication, along with the State Department's reported overtures towards the Sahelian juntas of the AES, that the US is looking to strengthen its involvement in combating the jihadist crisis in West Africa.
Posted by RaidBrimnes
2 Comments
!ping AFRICA
Horrific violence but I’m worried about the US military deployment as well. Did they ever manage to get it into Trump’s head that the terror groups were not the same as the central government of Nigeria?