THE U.S. BOMBED NIGERIA ON CHRISTMAS. I HAVE QUESTIONS.

On December 25, the United States military conducted airstrikes in Sokoto State, northwest Nigeria. The strikes followed President Trump publicly raising the prospect of military involvement to protect Nigerian Christians from violence, eventually claiming that the U.S. had successfully eliminated "ISIS terrorist scum".

A month later, we at SSA are still attempting to uncover the strategic underpinnings of these operations and assess the potential logic behind the targeting. Far from a clear success, the operation appears to be a case of "violence in a vacuum." Without verifiable evidence of who was hit or why this specific region was prioritized, the U.S. risks ceding the narrative to the very extremists it aims to dismantle.

When a counterterrorism intervention is as clouded in mystery as the threat it targets, the resulting silence only serves to empower the insurgent. To correct this course, the U.S.-Nigeria partnership must prioritize public transparency, localize its counter-messaging, and ensure kinetic actions are secondary to robust civil engagement and development efforts.

Assessing the “What” – Can Violence Prevent Violence?

Can an airstrike prevent violence? Surprisingly, yes - at least, in theory. Carefully timed and targeted kinetic operations can disrupt an armed group’s momentum, forcing them to pivot assets to self-protection instead of planned attacks. Strikes can create a temporary window of safety for nearby populations by targeting adversaries’ positions and destroying their stockpiles of weapons, resources and personnel. This approach is especially effective if attacks against civilians are imminent and the security apparatus is not poised to provide effective defensive protection - a common reality in counterterrorism theaters.

However, using violence to prevent violence is trickier to pull off. Kinetic operations can often heighten a sense of risk – an escalatory side effect that must be mitigated, especially in unstable environments like Nigeria. Without transparency or some sort of messaging around the reason for airstrikes, the resulting sense of fear and uncertainty among communities can serve as a catalyst for radicalization and disillusionment in the government, ultimately driving vulnerable populations toward the recruitment arms of the very groups the U.S. seeks to dismantle. 

While it can be argued that these attacks were carefully timed, they were definitely not carefully targeted. Let’s explore the “when,” “where,” and “who” now.

Assessing the “When” – Justifying Christmas-Day Strikes

Armed actors in Nigeria have a documented history of carrying out attacks at Christmas. Notable incidents include Boko Haram’s 2015 Christmas Day attack in Borno, a 2019 Christmas Eve attack in Adamawa, the 2023 Christmas Eve massacres in Plateau, and a 2024 Christmas Day attack in Benue State the following year. Violence in 2020 prompted the Nigerian government to issue security warnings of elevated risk of “yuletide” attacks.

Holidays can heighten risk by creating predictable civilian behavior, stretching security forces, and offering opportunities for armed actors to maximize psychological impact by infusing religious observances - and the gatherings of large groups of civilians to celebrate holidays - with fear and uncertainty. Combine this with the onset of the dry season in West Africa, where movement and maneuverability increases for insurgent groups as riverbeds dry up and weather is easy to navigate, and Christmas has been a particularly dangerous time for some Nigerian civilians.

Focusing preventive efforts around seasonal violence trends is a common and effective practice. Time-bound surges allow security forces to concentrate resources during predictable high-risk periods and withdraw once the threat subsides, reducing costs while limiting the negative effects of prolonged deployments. Such approaches can also improve civil-military relations, as communities are more likely to view short, clearly justified deployments as protective rather than intrusive, unlike extended military presence, which often degrades over time and fuels resentment.

Assessing the “Where” – Unpacking Nigeria’s Northwest

For over two decades, counterterrorism efforts in Nigeria have centered on the Northeast around the Lake Chad Basin region, the traditional epicenter of the Boko Haram insurgency. To an outside observer, a sudden pivot of military strikes to Nigeria’s Northwest may appear strategically misguided. 

A logic for this shift may exist: non-state armed group violence in the Northwest has surged over the past decade, with many analysts arguing that these fractured armed groups now pose a more immediate threat to Nigerian state stability than insurgencies in the Lake Chad Basin. If we assume this lens, repositioning military assets to address threats in Sokoto State could be a proactive attempt to stabilize a deteriorating region that sits at the intersection between insurgencies stemming from the Lake Chad Basin, Sahel and Middlebelt regions. 

However, this logic falters when measured against the specific trends of sectarian and of holiday-period violence. Data suggests that Sokoto does not face a disproportionately high risk of sectarian violence targeting Christians or of Christmas-season attacks relative to the northeast and northcentral regions of Nigeria. Even within Northwest itself, violence has been concentrated in Kebbi State and southern Sokoto, bordering Benin, while the airstrikes targeted areas of eastern Sokoto and hit mainly farmland.

As established, kinetic operations are most effective for violence prevention when they degrade an insurgent’s capacity for an imminent strike. Given the geographical mismatch between the location of these strikes and historical holiday violence trends, the operations likely missed their tactical mark. The choice of location suggests that the priority was not the "where," but the "who."

Assessing the “Who” – Lakurawa as a Priority Target?

While Boko Haram (known now as Jama'atu Ahlis-Sunna Lidda'Awati Wal-Jihad or JAS) and the Lake-Chad based Islamic State cell, known as the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) remain the most established jihadist threats in Nigeria, a new actor has recently emerged in the Northwest: Lakurawa. Shrouded in opacity, Lakurawa appears to have roots in the Sahelian insurgencies of Mali and Burkina Faso. Whether Lakurawa maintains formal ties to the Islamic State is unclear, as some analysts posit it is more aligned with the Sahel-based al-Qaeda insurgency Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), citing coordination between the two groups in early 2024 in Benin. 

Regardless, in Nigeria no single group holds a monopoly on sectarian violence; rather, a complex web of actors drives civilian insecurity across both Christian and Muslim communities. Thus, an argument could be made that quashing Lakurawa in Sokoto protects civilians from sectarian (and other forms of) violence across the federation by preventing the consolidation of a new insurgent front.

Except that nothing appears to have been “quashed.” A month later, no bodies have been found, and there is no evidence that a functional insurgent base or weapons cache was destroyed. In the absence of concrete military gains, some analysts are now suggesting the focus on Lakurawa may be politically motivated by the Nigerian government to justify a questionable foreign intervention. 

If this attack achieved one thing, it ensured more people know the name “Lakurawa” - which is in fact a gift to a burgeoning terrorist group trying to recruit fighters in a crowded landscape.

The Missing Link - Communication Is Key

One of the most significant failures of the "Christmas strikes" lies not necessarily in their tactical execution, but in their communicative void. The strategic logic - the why, the where, and the who - remains convoluted even to seasoned observers. Coordination between U.S. and Nigerian militaries even appears hazy. While military operations inherently rely on classified intelligence and the element of surprise, a counterterrorism strategy aimed at reducing sectarian risk cannot succeed in a vacuum of public understanding.

In the West African theater, the "violence to prevent violence" model is fraught with peril. Jihadist entities, including the emerging Lakurawa, gain traction by positioning themselves as security providers to "forgotten" populations or by exploiting the grievances of those targeted by the state. When the Nigerian government and its allies, like the United States, fail to articulate our objectives, we inadvertently cede the narrative to the insurgents. Reports from Sokoto indicate that the initial kinetic phase was met with confusion and fear rather than a sense of protection, resulting in some civilian casualties, but mostly just private property and farmland destruction; without a clear explanation of who was targeted and why, the state risks being viewed as just another source of arbitrary violence.

To transform these strikes from isolated kinetic events into a sustainable security strategy, the U.S.-Nigeria partnership must adopt the following policy imperatives:

1. Public Attribution and "Why" Signaling: The U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) must move beyond vague references to "ISIS targets." By explicitly attributing strikes to specific groups like Lakurawa and/or framing them as responses to imminent seasonal risks, in line with the strategy, the U.S. can dismantle the local perception that these are arbitrary (or worse, targetted) attacks on civilians in northern communities that may inadvertently force those people to seek alternative forms of protection from non-state actors like bandits and jihadists (which is how Lakurawa first established itself with the local population).

2. Conditionality through Sensitization and Communication: U.S. kinetic assistance should be contingent on the Nigerian military’s capacity for "follow-on" civilian engagement. To ensure transparency, the United States should mandate that its partner provide immediate, localized briefings to impacted communities explaining exactly who was targeted and why the threat required neutralization.

3. Joint Civilian Harm Mitigation (CHM) Transparency: Building on current Air-to-Ground Integration training, the U.S. should implement a joint post-strike assessment protocol. In the event of civilian casualties, the U.S. must lead in the rapid, public acknowledgment of errors and the provision of redress, positioning the partnership as a protector of civilians rather than an unaccountable source of trauma.

If the goal of U.S. intervention is to reduce sectarian risk and protect vulnerable populations, the method of intervention cannot be more opaque than the threat itself. Simply put - a bomb dropped in silence is a gift to the insurgent. In a "powder-keg" environment, transparency is not just a democratic ideal; it is a tactical necessity to prevent the very radicalization the state seeks to quash.