Residents found burning debris near their homes following a US strike that they never expected to reach their area.
Nigerians across Sokoto state awoke to loud blasts Thursday night, worried their village was being attacked by one of the multiple armed groups that plague northwest Nigeria.
They were in fact strikes by the United States, in a Christmas Day bombardment targeting militants in several places.
AFP reached three villagers by phone in the Sokoto countryside.
Surprise strikes rattle rural communities
The attack was a surprise to some around Jabo town, who said that their area was sometimes a target of armed “bandit” gangs and jihadists, but was not a stronghold for the groups.
“We heard a loud explosion which shook the whole town and everyone was scared,” said Haruna Kallah from Jabo, some 100 kilometres south of Sokoto city near the Niger border.
Nigeria and the US have been locked in a dispute over what President Donald Trump has characterised as the mass killing of Christians in the country’s armed conflicts.
The Nigerian government and independent analysts reject Washington’s framing, noting the west African country faces interlinked security crises that kill both Christian and Muslim civilians.
“We initially thought it was an attack by Lakurawa,” the main jihadist group in Sokoto State, Kallah said.
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Villagers discover debris after bombardment
Learning that it was a US attack “surprised us because this area has never been a Lakurawa enclave and we have never had any attacks in the last two years”.
He said some locals mustered the courage to explore a field outside Barkini village on the outskirts of the town, where they discovered burning fragments from the bombardment.
The US said it had struck militants linked to Islamic State without detailing which of Nigeria’s multiple and well-documented groups were targeted.
Ayuba Abdulkarim, another Jabo resident, said: “There was a huge explosion and everyone was terrified and thought the town was under attack from Lakurawa.
“Luckily no one was hurt, but fragments from the bomb caused damage to walls and roofs of nearby homes.”
Known militant camps reportedly targeted
Tukur Shehu, resident of Tangaza, a neighbouring district, said two strikes targeted Warriya and Alkassim villages — known to house Lakurawa camps, from where they launch attacks and keep hostages.
US special forces sneaked into Tangaza district in October 2020 and rescued Philip Walton, a US citizen kidnapped from his home in southern Niger.
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