Olushola Omogbehin
The first batch of United States military personnel has arrived in Nigeria, marking the beginning of a deployment of about 200 American intelligence to assist the country’s armed forces in targeted counterterrorism operations with the aim of protecting Nigerian Christians.
A U.S. military plane landed in the northeastern city of Maiduguri on Thursday night, according to Nigerian officials.
Officials from both countries confirmed that the first tranche of roughly 100 American troops will steadily arrive over the weekend.
According to a Sahel security expert, Brant Philip through his X handle on Sunday, US military personnel “are also responsible for ensuring the steady delivery of ammunition and equipment to the Nigerian Army, which will likely consist primarily of munitions for the Nigerian Air Force, NAF.
“Additional U.S. Air Force transport flights are expected to continue landing at three distinct locations in Nigeria. Two of these are almost certainly the Kainji and Maiduguri Airbases, with the latter being prioritized.”
Maj. Gen. Samaila Uba, a Nigerian defense spokesman, said the arriving U.S. troops would focus exclusively on training and technical matters.
“These personnel do not serve in a combat capacity and will not assume a direct operational role,” said General Uba. Nigerian forces retain full command authority, make all operational decisions and will lead all missions on Nigerian sovereign territory.”
While General Uba declined to say how long the American troops would be deployed in Nigeria, the Pentagon has suggested that this specific mission is temporary. The flow of forces is scheduled to last for a couple of months to support a specific set of operations, the Defense Department official said, though the official added that successful joint operations could lead to further deployments in the future.
Moving forward, the combined U.S.-Nigerian forces will build out joint mission planning capabilities, relying on intelligence gathered from both Nigerian and American sources. This includes data from U.S. surveillance flights currently operating from a base in neighboring Ghana, according to the Defense Department official.
