Nigeria Says 100 US Troops Have Landed to Help Train Its Armed Forces

The United States has dispatched about 100 troops to Nigeria to help train its military and bolster the country’s ability to deter terrorist threats, the Nigerian defense ministry said on Feb. 16.

Maj. Gen. Samaila Uba, spokesperson for Nigeria’s Defense Headquarters, said in a statement posted by presidential spokesperson Sunday Dare that the deployment was requested by Nigeria to the U.S. government for military training, technical support, and intelligence sharing.

Uba said the U.S. troops are in Nigeria only to serve in “an advisory and training capacity” and will not take part in combat operations.

All training activities are being conducted under the Nigerian government’s direction and authority, according to the spokesperson.

“Nigerian troops, alongside these advisers, will commence a series of joint training engagements and intelligence focused cooperation initiatives,” Uba said in the statement.

“These activities are designed to enhance the capacity of Nigerian troops to effectively identify and neutralize extremist terrorist groups seeking to destabilize the nation.”

The deployment followed a Feb. 3 announcement by U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), which oversees U.S. military operations across Africa, that a team of military specialists would be sent to Nigeria to help train Nigerian forces to combat extremist groups.

In December, U.S. forces launched airstrikes on the ISIS terrorist group in northwest Nigeria at the directive of President Donald Trump, who accused the terrorist group of “viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians, at levels not seen for many years, and even centuries.”

“I have previously warned these Terrorists that if they did not stop the slaughtering of Christians, there would be hell to pay, and tonight, there was,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Dec. 25, 2025.

“The Department of War executed numerous perfect strikes, as only the United States is capable of doing. Under my leadership, our Country will not allow Radical Islamic Terrorism to prosper.”

Trump had previously said in a November post that Christianity in Nigeria faced “an existential threat,” as thousands of the nation’s Christians were being killed by Islamist terrorists.

He designated Nigeria as a “country of particular concern” under the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act, which opens the country up to sanctions, and threatened to suspend all U.S. assistance to Nigeria if the Nigerian government refused to take action.

A 2025 report by the International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law (Intersociety), a Nigeria-based nongovernmental group, revealed that more than 7,000 Christians had been killed and 7,800 kidnapped in Nigeria during the first seven months of 2025. The Epoch Times cannot verify these figures.

Intersociety said that Islamist terrorist groups, including Boko Haram and Jihadist Fulani Bandits, were responsible for the killings and kidnappings of Christians in Nigeria.

Nigerian officials have rejected allegations of widespread Christian persecution, saying that the Boko Haram group and ISIS West Africa target people of all faiths.

Catherine Yang contributed to this report.