Nigeria announced Operation Savannah Shield on Wednesday and sent soldiers to Kwara, a central-western state where an attack on two villages attributed to Islamic militants left at least 175 dead. For months, the Nigerian authorities have failed to counter the advance of criminal gangs and Islamic militants. Experts and humanitarian organizations maintain that the efforts are insufficient.

First modification: 02/05/2026 - 23:17

Another brutal jihadist attack has exposed the vulnerability faced by some Nigerian states, especially in the center, northeast and northwest of the country. Many villages in these areas constantly suffer massacres committed by Islamic militia groups or mass assaults and kidnappings by criminal gangs.

The most recent gloomy image was recorded in Woro and Nuku, two Muslim-majority villages in the state of Kwara, in the central-west of the country. There, on Tuesday, an attack caused the death of at least 175 people, as confirmed by local leaders to the EFE agency. This represents one of the deadliest attacks outside of the country's known hotspots.

Although no group claimed responsibility for the massacre, witnesses and residents linked it to the action of Islamic militiamen. For its part, the Nigerian government blamed "Boko Haram terrorists" for having killed hundreds of "defenseless villagers", although Kwara state is not the usual territory of that jihadist group. Likewise, Mohammed Omar Bio, a local lawmaker, took aim at Lakurawa, a local faction, whose members were targeted by US bombings in December.

The death toll in the two communities, however, is presumably higher because "many people are still missing, including women and children," revealed Khaleed Abba, community leader of Woro. According to their statements to EFE, the attackers "chanted jihadist terms while attacking the villagers" and "some of the victims had their hands tied behind their backs, which clearly means that they were captured and tied before being executed."

For the Nigerian authorities, the attackers, followers of radical Islam, carried out the brutal attack because the villagers, also Muslims, rejected their extremist ideology. Kwara Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq maintained in X that the villagers "were massacred in cold blood simply for refusing to surrender to extremists preaching a strange doctrine."

The local leader also suggested that the massacre may have been a retaliation for recent anti-terrorist operations in the region, which are sometimes possible thanks to the information provided by local communities.

Read alsoNigeria: the president deploys the army after the massacre of 162 people in Kwara state

Kwara, new frontier for armed groups?

Due to its geographical location, Kwara State is a victim of insecurity of all kinds. It is ravaged both by armed gangs (known locally as 'bandits') who pillage villages and kidnap and terrorize their inhabitants, and by the increasing jihadist threat due to the southward advance of groups operating in the northwest of the country.

For example, the Support Group for Islam and Muslims (JNIM), a faction affiliated with Al Qaeda that is active in Burkina Faso and Mali, claimed last October to have carried out its first attack on Nigerian soil, precisely in Kwara.

Experts say that the sudden increase in deadly attacks and kidnappings in Kwara responds to the fact that that state is rapidly becoming a new frontier for armed groups seeking to expand in Africa's most populous country. This internal competition, they claim, has contributed to the expansion of militiamen who cross the vast forests of the area, unseen.

James Barnett, a researcher at the Hudson Institute, based in Washington, said that armed groups have expanded further as they encountered strong competition from rivals in the areas where they traditionally operated.

For his part, Malik Samuel, a security researcher at Good Governance Africa, predicted that these groups could join forces "to confront their common enemy, which is the State."

While the 'bandits' spread terror, especially in the center and northwest of Nigeria, the jihadist groups Boko Haram and, since 2016, its splinter Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP) concentrate their attacks in the northeast of the country. According to government and UN data, these two factions have killed more than 35,000 people – many of them Muslims – and forced the displacement of 2.7 million, mostly within Nigeria, but also in neighboring Cameroon, Chad and Niger.

Added to this are local jihadist movements such as Mahmuda and Lakurawa, the latter based in Sokoto state (northern) and with apparent links to the Islamic State-Sahel Province (ISSP), active in Niger.

Read alsoNigeria: what we know about US airstrikes against jihadist groups

The government reaction, in question

In response to Tuesday's massacre in Kwara, the Nigerian government has announced the launch of Operation Savannah Shield to "stop barbaric terrorists and protect defenseless communities." To this end, the office of President Bola Tinubu mobilized a battalion to the Kaiana area.

Since last November, the Nigerian Executive has declared a state of security emergency and ordered the recruitment of more police officers to deal with mass kidnappings throughout the country, as well as the deployment of forest guards.

However, government efforts have failed to stem the rise in attacks, prompting communities and some state governments in northern Nigeria to sign security pacts with armed groups to prevent killings.

Analysts assess the government's actions as insufficient, since the Army is overwhelmed by armed groups in different regions of the country, unable to collect intelligence or obtain modern weapons.

Likewise, the local office of the human rights organization Amnesty International stressed that the attack in Kwara reflected "an alarming security failure", with armed men destroying homes and looting shops.

In this unequal fight, Nigeria has begun to receive support from the United States, which since December has carried out air strikes against jihadist militias positions in the country and has deployed a small contingent of soldiers to provide support to local forces on the ground, especially in intelligence collection, as confirmed on Tuesday by the commander of the United States Military Command in Africa (AFRICOM), General Dagvin Anderson.

This collaboration, however, had to overcome months of diplomatic disputes after US President Donald Trump threatened to attack Nigeria under the pretext that the government was not doing enough to protect its Christian citizens.

Trump has alleged without evidence that militant groups are primarily killing Christians, a claim he repeated as early as last Thursday. However, local investigations reveal that although Christians are targets of attacks and kidnappings – the three most recent included 183 Christians, who have been recovered in Kaduna state – the majority of victims of armed groups are Muslims from northern Nigeria.

Read alsoNigeria: Who is behind the mass kidnappings?

With AP, EFE and AFP

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