The United States has deployed multiple MQ-9 Reaper drones and approximately 200 troops to Nigeria in the most significant American military commitment to West Africa since its forced withdrawal from Niger two years ago. This deployment signals Washington’s deepening alarm over the spread of Islamist insurgency across the region and a calculated pivot of its counterterrorism footprint to Africa’s most populous nation.
The US military has multiple MQ-9 drones operating in Nigeria alongside 200 troops to provide training and intelligence support to the Nigerian military, which is fighting Islamist militants across the north, US and Nigerian officials confirmed to Reuters. The troops are not integrated within Nigerian units on the frontline and the drones are collecting intelligence and are not carrying out airstrikes, officials from both countries said.
The troops and drones are operating from Bauchi Airfield, a newly built airport in the northeast of the country. A US defence official said the deployment was made at Nigeria’s request to support intelligence gathering. “We see this as a shared security threat,” the official said.
Nigeria’s Defence Headquarters moved swiftly to confirm the arrangement while stressing the limits of the American role. Major General Samaila Uba, Director of Defence Information, said: “This support builds on the newly established US-Nigeria intelligence fusion cell, which continues to deliver actionable intelligence to our field commanders. Our US partners remain in a strictly non-combat role, enabling operations led by Nigerian authorities.”
The MQ-9 Reaper drones which have been flown by both the US military and the CIA over the Middle East for years, in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Yemen can fly at altitudes of over 40,000 feet and loiter for more than 30 hours, making them exceptionally well-suited for persistent surveillance over vast and remote terrain. Each drone costs approximately $30 million and has separate models for land and sea surveillance. While they can be armed and used for airstrikes, AFRICOM confirmed they will be used in Nigeria solely for intelligence gathering and training.
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The deployment follows US airstrikes targeting militants in northwest Nigeria on Christmas Day 2025, intended to prevent attacks on civilians in the region, the first known direct American military action on Nigerian soil. It also forms part of a broader new security partnership agreed after US President Donald Trump alleged that Christians were being specifically targeted in Nigeria’s security crisis a characterisation rejected by many analysts, who note that the violence targets members of all faiths.
The move reflects broader US efforts to counter violent extremism in Africa following setbacks across the Sahel, where political instability in Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso has dramatically reduced Western military footprints. The US previously operated a $100 million drone base in neighbouring Niger with about 1,000 troops monitoring militant activity across the Sahel, a facility closed in 2024 after Niger’s military junta ordered American forces out. By shifting resources to Nigeria, Washington is seeking to prevent the further southward spread of jihadist activity into a country it regards as a strategic anchor in West Africa.
The scale of the crisis that has prompted the intervention is stark. Nigeria is battling a complex security emergency across its north, driven by Boko Haram and its breakaway faction ISWAP, the IS-linked Lakurawa group, and bandit organisations specialising in kidnapping for ransom and illegal mining. More than 40,000 people have been killed since Boko Haram’s insurgency began in 2009, according to UN data.
Militants have also intensified attacks in northwest Nigeria near the borders with Benin and Niger, where a long-running banditry crisis risks mutating into another Islamist operating zone. The crisis has further worsened with the arrival of Sahel-based groups on Nigerian soil, including Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, which claimed its first attack in Nigeria last year. Earlier this month, three suspected suicide bombings killed at least 23 people and wounded 108 others in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State.
US aircraft based in Ghana had previously conducted intelligence-gathering flights over Nigeria. Washington has also pledged increased intelligence sharing and arms sales to Nigeria as part of the expanded partnership. No fixed timeline for the American deployment has been set, with officials from both governments indicating that the duration will be determined jointly as the security situation evolves.