The United States military is expanding military cooperation with Nigeria as part of broader efforts to counter Islamic State-linked militants in Africa. US Africa Command says the Pentagon is also maintaining lines of communication with militaries in the West African countries of Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali.
Lieutenant General John Brennan of US Africa Command said the US was intensifying its partnership with Nigeria and maintaining limited engagement on security with junta-led governments in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, as part of a broader push to work more closely with African militaries.
"We’ve gotten a lot more aggressive and are working with partners to target, kinetically, the threats, mainly ISIS [Islamic State]," Brennan told France's AFP during an interview on the sidelines of an inaugural US-Nigeria security meeting in Abuja last Thursday.
The first US-Nigeria Joint Working Group meeting took place about a month after the US announced surprise Christmas Day strikes on Islamic State-linked targets in northwest Nigeria.
Brennan said the jihadist threat was interconnected, stretching from the Horn of Africa to West Africa.
"From Somalia to Nigeria, the problem set is connected," he noted. The aim was therefore to disrupt those networks and "provide partners with the information they need".
The deeper cooperation follows months of diplomatic pressure from Washington over escalating jihadist violence in Nigeria, particularly in the north and north-west.
Diplomatic tensions over religion
However there are ongoing ensions between the United States and Nigeria over Washington’s claims that Christians are being massacred in Nigeria – a narrative promoted by parts of the US religious right.
Abuja and independent analysts say that's an oversimplification of the country’s complex conflicts.
At the Abuja meeting, senior US diplomat Allison Hooker urged Nigeria to protect Christian communities in a speech that made no mention of Muslim victims of armed groups.
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Nigeria is roughly evenly split between a mostly Muslim north and a largely Christian south.
Brennan sought to play down concerns of religious bias, underlining that US intelligence support would not be limited to any single group.
Future assistance, he said, would focus on intelligence sharing to support Nigerian air strikes in northwest Sokoto state and in the northeast – where Boko Haram and its splinter faction Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) have been carrying out an insurgency since 2009.
He described ISWAP as the most concerning jihadist organisation.
Limits on US presence
Analysts have identified an increase in US intelligence, surveillance, and reconnsaissance flights over Nigeria in recent months. Some have questioned whether air power alone can singificantly weaken armed groups operating in areas marked by poverty and weak governance.
Brennan said cooperation with Nigeria would cover intelligence sharing, military tactics and support for procuring equipment.
He said the recent US strikes targeted militants linked to ISWAP – a group traditionally active in Niger but which appears to be pushing southwards in Nigeria and other coastal West African countries.
The full impact of those strikes remains unclear as journalists have been unable to independently verify casualties. Nigeria’s information minister, Mohammed Idris, described the operation last week as "still a work in progress".
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Brennan said the US continues to share information with the militaries of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, despite the collapse of formal security partnerships since coups between 2020 and 2023.
He also ruled out setting up new US military bases in West Africa, following the closure of American drone operations in Agadez, Niger, after the ruling junta ordered US forces to leave.
"We’re not in the market to create a drone base anywhere," Brennan said. "We are much more focused on getting capability to the right place at the right time and then leaving."
(with newswires)
