Fresh Horror in Nigeria: The Return of Boko Haram
It appears that the Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram has resurfaced after a relatively quiet period. Last week, three simultaneous bomb blasts shook the northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri, killing 27 people and wounding 146 others. While no one claimed responsibility for the attacks, Nigerian authorities quickly attributed them to Boko Haram, unsurprisingly, since the terrorist group originated in Maiduguri. Maiduguri, significantly, has remained the epicenter of a nearly two-decade-long quest to promote the creation of a caliphate in the region. Making this threat all the greater is the affiliation of Boko Haram with an al Qaeda offspring, the Islamic State in West Africa (ISWAP), whose ambitions are explicitly anti-American.
Amidst the daily drama of the Iran war, and an ongoing host of domestic conflicts and controversies here in the U.S., it’s been only too easy to lose sight of the continuing — indeed, expanding — crisis in Nigeria and other sub-Saharan states. However, the war against Islamist terrorism across the region is growing, and the U.S. is becoming more involved every day. (RELATED: The New York Times Keeps Getting It Wrong on Nigeria)
During the last year, the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) has reported a steady increase in activity, including directed drone strikes, but also — and this is likely, but unconfirmed — through covert special operations activity in the region. All of this comes partly in response to increased terrorist activity, partly because various African nations have increasingly solicited our help, and most importantly, because the Trump administration eased restrictions on targeting, allowing greater flexibility in authorizing strikes when requested by our African partners. (RELATED: Protecting Nigeria’s Christians: Trump’s Strike Against ISIS)
Early last year, for example, and at the request of the Somalian government, the U.S. carried out multiple drone strikes around Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. These were aimed at the local leadership of al-Shabaab, the jihadist group that has terrorized large swaths of Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya for the last several years. This provoked a loud outcry from the leftists over at The Intercept, but it has been welcomed throughout the region.
Most notably, last Christmas, the U.S. conducted a series of cruise missile strikes against Boko Haram and ISWAP bases in northern Nigeria. The effect has been difficult to measure, but three conclusions could be drawn. One, at least when it comes to Boko Haram and ISWAP, the Nigerian authorities have opened the door — albeit under pressure — to an increased level of U.S. activity, and in fact, have now decided that this is welcome. Second, these groups no longer operate with the sense of impunity that had grown up around their activities. (RELATED: Expert Raises Grave Fears of a ‘Christmas Massacre’ in Nigeria)
Finally, the strike sent a signal to the crowd over at The Intercept and our other leftists that Trump meant business. No longer were we going to respond to Islamist terrorism in Africa by clutching our pearls and weeping in the manner of the Biden administration. Nor were we going to confine our African outreach to raining goodies on irresponsible NGOs, to pious pronouncements about climate change, or to the display of rainbow flags at our consulates. In places where the foremost barrier to human development and economic growth is the lack of security, we now seem ready, finally, to take the security problem seriously.
Still, much remains to be done, and again, Nigeria illustrates the problem. I’ve written about this problem again and again, as has my American Spectator colleague Ellie Gardey Holmes. What we’ve said remains, sadly, all too true. Not only does Nigeria remain the worst place in the world right now to be a Christian, but our ability to stop the killing is severely limited by the unwillingness of the Nigerian government to address the most active threat. This, of course, is the ongoing war of marauding Fulani terrorists against Christian farmers in Nigeria’s “Middle Belt” region.
“War,” in this context, is a misnomer, for the Christians have largely been deprived of any ability to defend themselves against the marauding Fulani gangs…
“War,” in this context, is a misnomer, for the Christians have largely been deprived of any ability to defend themselves against the marauding Fulani gangs, who ride into unprotected Christian farming communities motorcycles and pickup trucks, brandishing AK-47s and RPGs, killing and raping very much at will, with Nigerian security forces, to the extent that they might be present, largely standing aside and allowing the horror to happen.
Over the last year, some 3,500 of the reported 5,000 religiously-motivated murders of Christians worldwide have taken place in Nigeria, and, overwhelmingly, these have been perpetrated by the Fulani. Worse, several hundred thousand Christian farming families have been driven off their land and into IDPs, Internal Displaced Persons camps, which are also frequently targeted. I’ve written about this again and again, and nothing much has changed over time.
Unlike Boko Haram, whose 2014 kidnapping and brutalization of 276 mostly Christian schoolgirls gained worldwide attention and universal condemnation, the Fulani campaign of ethnic cleansing — really, a slow-motion genocide — has been repeatedly either downplayed or “contextualized.” The Nigerian government, the international media, the Biden State Department, even the Vatican all came together around a narrative suggesting that this was a conflict over land use — herders versus farmers — exacerbated by the convenient excuse of “climate change.”
This formulation still holds sway, in spite of the Trump administration’s increasing attention to the slaughter in Nigeria. The Christmas cruise missile attacks against Boko Haram and ISWAP targets in the northeast, far from the locus of Fulani attacks, came about because the Nigerian government acknowledges the threat these groups pose. It is at least somewhat willing to invite help in dealing with them, unlike the Fulani massacres of Christians. Boko Haram and ISWAP, after all, pose a direct threat to the authority of the Nigerian government, as well as the governments of neighboring countries. The Fulanis, by and large, accept the authority of the government, at least so long as it doesn’t interfere with their passion for killing their Christian neighbors.
Since the Christmas cruise missile strikes, the Nigerian government has accepted a small number of U.S. military “advisors” to help with the threat from Boko Haram and ISWAP. Significantly, however, this assistance, just like the missile strikes, appears to be walled off from protecting those in greatest need, the Christian farmers of the Middle Belt. Still, this is progress, since it demonstrates at least some willingness by the Nigerian authorities to up their game. The U.S. presence also responds to an American strategic concern, since ISWAP has explicitly stated that it wishes to create a safe haven for anti-U.S. strikes, similar to the one al Qaeda once enjoyed in Afghanistan.
But while these geo-strategic interests are increasingly served, this is playing the long game. Time, however, is not on the side of the persecuted Christian farming communities, where the dying continues on a daily basis. We’re finally, at long last, responding to the plight of the long-suffering people of Iran. But as the Iran war appears to be reaching a climactic moment, with ever-increasing air strikes and the prospect of troops taking control of the Strait of Hormuz, let’s not forget the Nigerian Christians.
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James H. McGee retired in 2018 after nearly four decades as a nuclear security and counter-terrorism professional. Since retiring, he’s begun a second career as a thriller writer. His most recent novel, The Zebras from Minsk, was featured among National Review’s favorite books in 2025. You can find The Zebras from Minsk (and its predecessor, Letter of Reprisal) on Amazon in Kindle and paperback editions.