The United States has sent a small contingent of troops to Nigeria, the agency said. Reuters is related to the head of US Africa Command, General Dagvin Anderson.
As the agency points out, this is the first confirmation of the presence of US troops in Nigeria, which is possible after the two countries agreed to intensify the fight against the terrorist threat in West Africa.
“This has led to increased cooperation between our countries, including the dispatch of a small U.S. team to provide uniquely American capabilities,” Reuters quoted Anderson as saying. He did not disclose the size or scope of the mission.
Since December 2025, the armed forces of Nigeria and the United States have carried out several joint attacks against extremist targets on Nigerian territory, as a result of which plans for terrorist attacks in four states of the African country – Sokoto, Zamfara, Niger and Katsina – were prevented. Nigerian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Kimiebi Ebienfa spoke about Nigeria's strategic engagement with the United States in intelligence sharing and other forms of cooperation.
We are talking about the fight against Boko Haram and the Islamic State in West Africa groups (ISWAP, part of the Islamic State group banned in the Russian Federation). Boko Haram terrorists began operating in Nigeria in 2009, then in Niger, Chad and Cameroon. In 2015, the Nigerian Armed Forces inflicted a crushing defeat on the group and significantly reduced the territory under its control. In 2024, Nigeria ranked sixth in the world in the number of terrorist attacks.
