Nigeria's conflicts

How did Boko Haram's war begin?

Mohammed Yusuf founded Boko Haram in Maiduguri around 2002. The group rejected Western-style education and wanted Islamic law across northern Nigeria. In July 2009 its members fought police and soldiers in several northern states, and about 800 people were killed, most of them members of the group. Yusuf was captured and then shot dead in police custody. Police said he was trying to escape. Human Rights Watch called it an extrajudicial killing. His deputy, Abubakar Shekau, took over and led the group into an armed insurgency.

Boko Haram attacked churches, mosques, markets, schools and army bases across the north. In April 2014 it kidnapped 276 schoolgirls from Chibok in Borno. In August 2014 Shekau declared a caliphate, and by early 2015 the group held an area about the size of Belgium. In March 2015 Shekau pledged loyalty to the Islamic State, and the group became its West Africa Province (ISWAP). That year Nigeria's army and the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF), with troops from Chad, Niger and Cameroon, drove it out of most towns. In 2016 the Islamic State named Abu Musab al-Barnawi as the province's leader. Shekau's followers split off and went back to the name Jama'atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda'awati wal-Jihad (JAS), still widely called Boko Haram. In May 2021 ISWAP fighters overran Shekau's camp in Sambisa Forest, and Shekau reportedly blew himself up to avoid capture.

ISWAP now holds islands in Lake Chad and taxes fishing and farming communities. Boko Haram fighters operate from Sambisa Forest, the Mandara Mountains and other islands in the lake. ACLED counted 4,518 people killed in jihadist violence in Nigeria in 2025, the most since 2015. On February 3-4, 2026, gunmen killed at least 162 people in Woro and Nuku in Kwara State, far southwest of Borno. President Tinubu blamed Boko Haram. Reuters reported in late October 2026 that attacks on army bases in the northeast had surged. The army said it killed 48 fighters after attacks on two bases in Borno and Yobe on October 29-30, 2026.

Who are the bandits, and why do they kidnap?

Since the early 2010s, armed gangs in northwest Nigeria have raided villages, stolen cattle and kidnapped people for ransom. Nigerians call them bandits. The gangs are loosely organized and based in forests in Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna, Sokoto and Niger states. Many of their fighters are young Fulani men. Crisis Group traces the violence to competition for land and water between mostly Fulani herders and mostly Hausa farmers. Researchers also point to the spread of small arms and the thin presence of the police in rural areas. Herders say they lose cattle to rustlers, and that village vigilante groups have killed Fulani herders.

SBM Intelligence, a Lagos research firm, counted 7,825 people kidnapped in Nigeria between July 2025 and June 2026, 66% more than a year earlier. At least 1,142 people were killed in kidnapping incidents. Confirmed ransom payments reached 7.78 billion naira ($5.8 million). SBM estimated that Boko Haram received about 7 billion naira of it, mostly from two mass abductions. One was of 416 people in Ngoshe in Borno. The other was at St. Mary's Catholic School in Papiri, Niger State, where gunmen seized 303 pupils and 12 teachers on November 21, 2025. About 50 pupils escaped. The government said the rest were freed by December 21, and it denies paying ransoms. Four days before Papiri, gunmen took 25 schoolgirls from a school in Maga, Kebbi State. One escaped, and the other 24 were freed on November 25.

Lakurawa is a jihadist armed group in Sokoto and Kebbi states that drew wide attention in late 2024. Analysts disagree on whether it is tied to the Islamic State's Sahel Province or to al-Qaeda-linked groups. It taxes villagers and attacks soldiers and police. Police in Kebbi said Lakurawa fighters killed a police inspector and 11 residents between October 26 and 29, 2026.

How many people have died in Nigeria's conflicts?

No single agency counts all of Nigeria's dead. ACLED, which tracks reported violent events, counted 11,968 conflict deaths in Nigeria in 2025. That was more than its totals for Syria, Yemen and Iraq combined. Ladd Serwat, an ACLED analyst, told the Washington Post in April 2026 that attacks in Nigeria grew 25% in the first three months of 2026.

The northeast insurgency has killed far more people over the years. A study for the UN Development Programme estimated nearly 350,000 deaths by the end of 2020. Most of them died of hunger and disease caused by the war.

Nigeria's own forces have also killed civilians. In 2015 Amnesty International reported that more than 7,000 men and boys had died in military detention in the northeast since 2011. The military rejected the report. On December 3, 2023, an army drone strike hit villagers marking a Muslim festival in Tudun Biri, Kaduna State. The army admitted the mistake and said 85 people died. Amnesty International put the toll at about 120.

Violence between farmers and herders in the Middle Belt kills hundreds of people every year. Most farmers in Benue and Plateau are Christians, and most herders are Muslim Fulani. Wilfred Anagbe, the Catholic bishop of Makurdi in Benue, told US congressional hearings in 2025 that the attacks are a genocide of Christians. The Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association, a herders' group, says herders' cattle are stolen and herders are killed too, and it rejects the blaming of all Fulani. Nextier, a Nigerian research firm, counted more than 2,000 people killed in farmer-herder clashes in Benue and Plateau states since 2021. On the night of June 13, 2025, gunmen attacked Yelwata in Benue's Guma area. Local officials blamed armed herders. Many of the dead were displaced families sheltering in the town. Benue's governor put the toll at 59, and police later said 47. Amnesty International said at least 100 people were killed. On June 21, 2026, gunmen killed 20 people in Kawel, in Plateau's Bokkos area, police said.

What did the US do in Nigeria?

On October 31, 2025, President Trump designated Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern for religious freedom. Nigeria had been on that list in 2020 and was taken off in 2021. The next day Trump said Christians were being killed and threatened military action and a cut in aid. On December 25, 2025, the US struck two Islamic State camps in the Bauni forest in Tangaza, Sokoto State. A US official told the New York Times that a Navy destroyer in the Gulf of Guinea fired more than a dozen Tomahawk missiles. Nigeria's government said it approved the strikes and supplied the intelligence. It named the targets as Islamic State fighters, Lakurawa and bandits.

About 200 US troops arrived in February 2026 to train and advise Nigeria's forces. On May 15-16, 2026, a joint US-Nigerian operation in the Lake Chad basin killed Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, whom US officials called the Islamic State's second-in-command. In July, AFRICOM's commander, General Dagvin Anderson, said most of the forces sent for that operation had left. On September 1, Nigeria confirmed that the 200 troops were leaving. The two governments still share intelligence.

Trump and US Christian advocacy groups say Christians in Nigeria face a targeted killing campaign. Some Nigerian church leaders agree. Rev. John Hayab, who heads the Christian Association of Nigeria in the northern states, said in November 2025 that the attackers have always come in the name of Islam. Open Doors, a Christian charity, counted 3,490 Christians killed for their faith in Nigeria in the year to September 2025, 72% of its world total. ACLED does not record the religion of most victims. It counted 20,409 civilians killed in Nigeria from January 2020 to September 2025. Of those, 317 died in attacks where the victims' Christian identity was a reported factor, and 417 in attacks targeting Muslims, AP reported. ACLED analysts said these attacks are part of a wider rise in violence against civilians of all faiths. Ladd Serwat of ACLED said Muslims and Christians had been targeted at similar rates over the past five years. Open Doors counts Christians it judges were killed for their faith, so the two counts measure different things.

Nigeria's government rejects the claim of a targeted campaign. On November 1, 2025, President Tinubu said that "the characterisation of Nigeria as religiously intolerant does not reflect our national reality." His government says the violence hits Christians and Muslims alike, and that most victims of the armed groups in the Muslim-majority north are Muslims.