Nigeria Counter Terrorism Operations in 2025 – Necessary, but ISIS Continues to expand
On December 31, gunmen carried out two coordinated attacks in Nigeria, one targeting Christians gathered for a New Year’s Eve service and another striking a police station. These incidents followed closely on December 29, when Nigerian troops arrested suspected suicide bomber Abubakar Mustapha at the Banki Central Mosque after an intelligence-led operation by the 152 Task Force Battalion.
Mustapha was found in possession of primed IED components, indicating imminent plans to attack Banki and nearby communities including Kumshe, Darajamal, and Kirawa. Investigators linked him to cross-border terrorist activity. In a related operation along the Cameroon-Nigeria border, troops intercepted a vehicle transporting 12 bags of urea fertilizer commonly used for explosives and arrested the dealer.
According to Director of Defence Media Operations Maj.-Gen. Michael Onoja, Nigerian security forces killed at least 20 senior terrorist commanders in 2025. Authorities arrested 4,375 suspects, secured the surrender of 1,616 fighters and family members, and rescued 2,336 kidnapped victims nationwide.
In the northeast alone, security forces arrested more than 1,300 suspects and rescued nearly 500 hostages while destroying terrorist camps and recovering weapons, vehicles, equipment, and cash. In the northwest, operations resulted in 669 arrests and the rescue of 966 kidnapped victims, alongside efforts to restore farming and commerce.
Onoja also confirmed joint U.S.-Nigeria airstrikes in Sokoto State targeting Islamic State-linked enclaves used by foreign fighters entering Nigeria from the Sahel. The U.S. strike operation occurred between December 25 and 26, 2025, in the Bauni forest area of Tangaza district. AFRICOM reported the use of MQ-9 Reaper drones employing more than 16 GPS-guided precision munitions, as well as over a dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from USS Paul Ignatius in the Gulf of Guinea. Multiple ISIS militants were killed, though exact numbers were not disclosed.
These December strikes mark a significant escalation from previous U.S.-Nigeria security cooperation. Prior to 2025, U.S. involvement focused on training, intelligence sharing, and equipment transfers rather than direct combat. Assistance included counterterrorism training through the State Department’s Anti-Terrorism Assistance program and the Department of Defense’s Section 333 authority, along with intelligence support via U.S. Africa Command. U.S. ISR operations relied heavily on unarmed surveillance drones operating from Niger’s Agadez air base until the 2023 coup disrupted Sahelian operations. Equipment transfers included armored vehicles and communications gear, though military sales were constrained by human rights concerns under the Leahy Law.
The shift to kinetic strikes using MQ-9 Reapers and Tomahawk missiles represents the first acknowledged direct U.S. combat action on Nigerian soil. The move signals expanded operational authorities under the Trump administration’s counterterrorism approach to West Africa.
Christian casualties in Nigeria during 2025 remained severe. Intersociety reported 7,087 Christians killed in the first 220 days of the year, averaging more than 30 deaths per day, with 7,899 abducted. A European Parliament inquiry cited more than 7,000 victims and approximately 7,800 kidnappings in the first seven months. Since 2009, Intersociety data records 185,009 total slayings in Nigeria, including 125,009 Christians and 60,000 Muslims, alongside the destruction of 19,100 churches and the abduction of more than 600 Christian clerics.
The escalating death toll reflects the operational capacity and geographic reach of multiple jihadist groups. Boko Haram, founded in 2002, experienced a resurgence in 2025 under the leadership of Bakura Doro and continues operating across the Lake Chad Basin. ISWAP, which split from Boko Haram in 2016, fields an estimated 8,000 to 12,000 fighters and has become the most active ISIS affiliate globally. Between July 2024 and July 2025, ISWAP claimed 445 attacks resulting in 1,552 casualties and has killed tens of thousands since 2016.
Another regional Islamist extremist organization, Lakurawa, linked to Islamic State Sahel Province, operates primarily in Sokoto and Kebbi states and was the principal target of the December U.S. strikes, having carried out at least 13 attacks in 2025. Fulani extremist groups continue to fuel farmer-herder violence in the Middle Belt, while Ansaru, an al-Qaeda-affiliated splinter group, has reemerged in northwest-central Nigeria.
In November 2025, the Trump administration designated Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern following a series of attacks on Christians, including a Catholic church shooting that killed two people, the kidnapping of 303 schoolchildren and 12 teachers from a Catholic school in Papiri, and the abduction of 25 schoolgirls from a Catholic school in Kebbi State. President Trump threatened to cut foreign aid and warned that the United States would intervene directly if the violence continued.
Those warnings led to the strikes, which the United States conducted with the permission of and in coordination with Nigerian authorities. Nigeria ranked sixth in the 2025 Global Terrorism Index with a score of 7.658. Violence has displaced more than 12 million people since 2009, while the Nigerian military remains overstretched across multiple fronts. ISWAP’s rise as the world’s most active ISIS affiliate, combined with Boko Haram’s resurgence and the emergence of Lakurawa, reflects a widening terrorist threat with regional implications.
The policy of the previous U.S. administration, passive monitoring of terrorist activity, has proven insufficient against groups actively targeting Christians and destabilizing a country of more than 230 million people.
While former Biden National Security Council advisor Judd Devermont cautioned that instability in Nigeria will not be reversed overnight by increased U.S. involvement, the precision strikes demonstrate that targeted action against ISIS leadership and infrastructure can degrade capabilities and provide Nigerian forces critical breathing room. The hope is that a combination of direct action, sustained training, and intelligence support may offer a viable path to containing the threat before it further metastasizes across the Sahel.
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