\n<\/p>\n
The Trump administration<\/span> is increasing the U.S. military\u2019s presence in Nigeria, where decades of American military assistance has coincided with increased violence and instability.<\/p>\n About 100 U.S. military personnel have already arrived in\u00a0the West African country. The deployment, which is expected to more than double in the near future, follows a Christmas Day U.S. air strike<\/a> and billions of U.S. tax dollars spent on fruitless military and intelligence support.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the request of Nigeria and as part of our longstanding relationship and defense partnership, U.S. military forces are arriving in Nigeria to provide training, advising, and technical capabilities in support of Nigerian-led counterterror operations,\u201d a U.S. Africa Command spokesperson told The Intercept.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What AFRICOM doesn\u2019t want to address is the billions in U.S. taxpayer dollars already spent on military training, arms and equipment in a rapidly deteriorating security situation.\u00a0It\u2019s part of a larger pattern of spiking terrorist violence<\/a> in areas of Africa that have seen the longest and most concerted U.S. counterterrorism efforts.<\/p>\n Between 2000 and 2022, the U.S. provided, facilitated, or approved more than\u00a0$2 billion in security assistance<\/a> to Nigeria, according to a\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0by Brown University\u2019s Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Studies. In that same period, Nigerian airstrikes killed thousands of citizens. A 2017 attack on a displaced persons camp in Rann, Nigeria, killed more than 160 civilians, including children. A subsequent Intercept investigation revealed that the attack was referred to as an instance of \u201cU.S.\u2013Nigerian operations<\/a>\u201d in a formerly secret U.S. military document.<\/p>\n Nigeria has been beset by violence from militants, terrorists, so-called criminal bandits, and its own<\/a> security forces<\/a> for decades<\/a>. Africa\u2019s most populous country recorded no fewer than 169,000 violent deaths between 2006 and 2021, with the highest percentages attributed to crime and insurgency, according to a 2025 Lancet study<\/a>. Recently, these two nominally separate threats have merged. \u201cThe emergence of violent extremist groups in northwest Nigeria implies the long-feared convergence of militant Islamist groups with organized criminal networks \u2014 infusing financial incentives with ideological zeal and terrorist violence,\u201d according to a December report<\/a> by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, a Pentagon research institution. \u201cNigeria has simultaneously been staving off this convergence in the northeast, where\u00a0Boko Haram and the Islamic State of West Africa<\/a>\u00a0have been active for the past 15 years.\u201d<\/p>\n This convergence of crime and terrorism has supercharged lethal violence in significant pockets of the country. \u201cNigeria experienced an 18-percent increase in fatalities tied to militant Islamist groups over the past year,\u201d according to another Africa Center analysis<\/a>. \u201cBorno State in Nigeria\u2019s North East Zone remains the epicenter of this violence and Nigeria accounts for 74 percent of all fatalities in the region.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked to explain why insecurity and instability have increased in Nigeria during its \u201clongstanding relationship and defense partnership\u201d with the United States, AFRICOM\u2019s director of public affairs, Col. Rebecca Heyse, referred The Intercept to the Department of War and the State Department. Neither provided answers prior to publication.<\/p>\n Nigeria\u2019s population of 230 million is roughly split between Christians and Muslims. People of both faiths have been targeted by extremists, but most of Boko Haram\u2019s victims are Muslims, and violent deaths in northern Nigeria are generally caused by Muslim-on-Muslim violence. But in a Truth Social post last November, President Donald Trump\u00a0threatened to go into Nigeria with \u201cguns-a-blazing<\/a>\u201d to protect \u201cour CHERISHED Christians.\u201d The U.S. then conducted missile strikes in Nigeria on Christmas Day, targeting\u00a0what Trump called \u201cTerrorist Scum<\/a>\u201d\u00a0that were killing Christians. He later explained that he delayed the strike until the holiday to \u201cgive a Christmas present<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n AFRICOM claimed to have struck targets in \u201cSoboto state<\/a>,\u201d an apparent reference to Sokoto state, on December 25. Another 2025 Africa Center report<\/a> noted that \u201cmilitant Islamist cells\u201d have moved into Sokoto state in recent years. AFRICOM did not respond to questions about how it could be sure who it attacked when it was unclear about where it attacked.<\/p>\n While Trump called the Christmas attacks \u201cperfect strikes,\u201d at least four of the 16 Tomahawk missiles failed to explode, according to a\u00a0Washington Post analysis<\/a>.\u00a0There is no evidence militants were killed in the attacks, according to a Nigerian security analyst with ties to that country\u2019s military who spoke on the condition of anonymity with The Intercept to offer an unvarnished opinion.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n