More than a hundred people were killed in early February when armed assailants attacked two villages in the Kaya local government area of central Nigeria’s Kwara state, a blaze of violence that has exposed persistent gaps in the country's security architecture and prompted international condemnation.
Nigerian authorities quickly characterised the Feb. 3 assault as a terrorist attack. Survivors and local responders reported houses set alight and scores of civilians slaughtered; by the night of Feb. 4 the death toll had been revised to 162. The federal government ordered military reinforcements to the area and described the deployment as necessary to protect defenceless communities.
On Feb. 17 the United Nations Security Council issued a statement condemning the killings in the strongest terms, expressing condolences to victims’ families and urging member states to cooperate with Nigeria to bring perpetrators, organisers and financiers to justice. The council stressed that terrorism in all its forms remains a grave threat to international peace and security.
The assault comes against a backdrop of chronic insecurity across Nigeria’s north-west and central belts, where jihadist factions and loosely affiliated bandit groups routinely carry out massacres, kidnappings and raids. Two jihadist franchises in particular—Boko Haram and the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP)—have been central to the country’s violence for more than a decade, and regional fighting has concentrated around the Lake Chad basin straddling Nigeria, Niger and Chad.
Kidnapping for ransom and mass abductions of schoolchildren have become a distressingly familiar tactic. In November a Catholic school in Niger state was attacked and more than 300 pupils and staff were seized; that episode was one of the largest mass kidnappings in recent Nigerian history and helped prompt a nationwide security emergency declared by President Bola Tinubu in late 2025.
Despite sustained counter‑insurgency pressure, ISWAP and Boko Haram have remained capable of mounting large-scale operations. In 2025, incomplete tallies suggest those groups executed more than 300 attacks and staged cross-border offensives into neighbouring Chad, prompting joint military responses that have reduced—but not eliminated—the militants’ territorial control.
The violence has also invited deeper foreign involvement. The United States conducted air strikes against jihadi targets in Nigeria in late December 2025 and has since acknowledged a limited ground presence. U.S. Africa Command’s commander disclosed a small advisory contingent in the country, and Nigerian authorities later confirmed that roughly 100 American personnel and equipment had arrived at Bauchi airport. U.S. officials are reported to be preparing an additional deployment of about 200 troops to train Nigerian forces.
The arrival of Western forces and widening international attention complicate both operational and political dynamics. Nigerian leaders welcome outside assistance to degrade militant capabilities, but expanded foreign footprints risk inflaming nationalist sensitivities and could alter the strategic calculations of local armed groups. For communities on the receiving end of attacks, the immediate need is humanitarian relief, secure access and credible protection—areas where Nigeria’s security services and international partners have repeatedly struggled to deliver.