The United States earlier this month withdrew most of its troops deployed for a joint counterterrorism operation in northeastern Nigeria.
The region has long been a hotspot for the Boko Haram Islamic terrorist group and its splinter factions – particularly the Islamic State West African Province (ISWAP), one of the “Islamic State’s” most active affiliates globally.
Gen. Dagwin Anderson of U.S. Africa Command described the joint operation as a model for future security cooperation on the continent.
“We have withdrawn most of our forces that were there for that operation,” Anderson told reporters at a conference of African defense chiefs in Luanda, Angola.
“But [we] “We are continuing the partnership we have sought to help Nigeria continue to share the intelligence and understanding needed to be able to pursue these difficult tasks.”
In February, the United States sent a small contingent to support local forces with intelligence, logistics, and training. The deployment follows tensions between Washington and Abuja after US President Donald Trump accused Nigeria of failing to stop killings against Christians and threatened military intervention.
However, the partnership soon expanded beyond advisory roles.
The joint operation, which led to the killing of Abu Bilal al-Minuki, a senior leader of the “Islamic State” (IS), also killed 175 fighters while destroying checkpoints, weapons caches, logistics centers, military equipment and financing networks used by the group.
A new model or a one-off operation?
Now, the decline comes amid significant changes in the US security posture and a broader effort by Washington to share the burden among its partners and allies.
In Africa, the security landscape is changing faster than its armed forces, as jihadist armed groups spread across the Sahel, Somalia and northeastern Nigeria.
According to analysts, with the joint mission in Nigeria, the United States is putting its strategy into practice by providing specialized training, surveillance capabilities and support to African-led operations rather than maintaining large military deployments – even as Western forces are being drawn back amid growing Russian and Chinese influence on the continent.
James Barnett, a research fellow at the Hudson Institute who specializes in conflict and insurgency in Nigeria and Africa, said the overall U.S. approach to counterterrorism in Africa is not changing much.
“The U.S. military always talks about supporting capable African partners who take the lead, that’s the general philosophy, but the Trump administration has shown it is eager to bolster U.S. military power with airstrikes or raids, particularly against Islamic State networks,” Barnett said.
On the other side of the continent, in Somalia, where local forces are much weaker, the US military remains heavily active with about 600 military personnel and a sustained air campaign against “Islamic State” fighters and al-Shabaab militants in the region.
“What’s more telling is that Washington is calling this a model for future cooperation across Africa, which means it fits with broader US foreign policy interests in dismantling Islamic State’s global network and re-establishing US relevance in African security after a period of reduced engagement,” said Taiwo Adebayo, a researcher at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS Africa).
“So, it’s less a step back and more a way for the US to choose a mode of engagement that it can sustain and replicate, using Nigeria as a proof of concept,” Adebayo told DW.
Could this strengthen Africa-led campaigns?
The continent has seen an increase in terrorism-related activities in recent years. according to 2026 global terrorism indexMore than half of the world’s terrorism-related deaths occur in West Africa’s Sahel, making this vast region a global epicenter of terrorism.
“The US has sought to intervene or provide support where it can demonstrate symbolic or quick victories, even if insurgencies in those areas remain strong and unresolved,” Beverly Ochieng, senior analyst at Control Risks, told DW.
He said that since Trump’s re-entry into office “U.S. airstrikes in Nigeria and Somalia have not dislodged rebel groups or discouraged their activities, and will not address the broader devastating effects of insecurity in these countries.”
Many experts agree that a partnership with the US is essential to enhance early warning capabilities and ongoing ground operations.
Adebayo commented that international cooperation is vital to dismantling insurgent networks, while Ochieng said that “an all-out military approach is unlikely to suffice as the fundamental issues that enable militant and armed groups to remain active… still need to be addressed”. [African] The governments themselves.”
“They should also limit dependence on increasingly unreliable international geopolitical partners,” Ochieng concluded.
Edited by: Keith Walker