A Nigerian police truck stands at the deserted Maiduguri Monday Market the morning after multiple explosions struck the northeastern city of Maiduguri, Borno State, Nigeria, March 17, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Ahmed Kingimi

The US military has multiple MQ-9 drones operating in Nigeria alongside 200 troops to provide training and intelligence support to the military, which is fighting Islamist terrorists across the north, US and Nigerian officials told Reuters.

The troops are not integrated within Nigerian units on the frontline and the drones are collecting intelligence and not carrying out airstrikes, officials from the two countries said.

However, the US deployment, which follows US airstrikes targeting militants in northwest Nigeria in late 2025, shows the US getting back involved in tackling Islamic State and al Qaeda-linked insurgencies that are spreading across West Africa.

The US military previously had a $100 million drone base in neighboring Niger with about 1,000 troops monitoring militants across the Sahel region, but that was closed in 2024 after the Niger junta requested their departure, part of a broader rejection of western military support by countries in the Sahel region.

An assault by suicide bombers on a northeastern Nigerian garrison town this week showed how a 17-year insurgency there can still strike urban centers.

Meanwhile, militants have stepped up their attacks in the northwest, near the border with Benin and Niger, where a long-running banditry crisis risks mutating into another operating zone for Islamists.

A US defense official said the drones had been deployed alongside troops at the request of the Nigerians to collect intelligence. “We see this as a shared security threat,” the official said.

Major General Samaila Uba, director of defense information at Nigeria’s Defense Headquarters, confirmed that the US was operating assets from Bauchi airfield in the northeast.

“This support builds on the newly established US-Nigeria intelligence fusion cell, which continues to deliver actionable intelligence to our field commanders,” he told Reuters. “Our US partners remain in a strictly non-combat role, enabling operations led by Nigerian authorities.”

‘IDENTIFY, TRACK AND RESPOND’

Uba said the timeline for the US deployment in Nigeria would be determined in agreement by both sides.

MQ-9 drones, which are sometimes known as Reaper drones and can loiter at high altitude for more than 27 hours, can be used for both intelligence gathering and airstrikes.

Neither Uba nor the US official would comment on specific cases where US intelligence had led to the Nigerians targeting militants, but Uba said that US forces were helping Nigeria “identify, track and respond to terrorist threats.”

Late last year, Reuters reported that aircraft based in Ghana had been conducting intelligence gathering flights for the US military over Nigeria.

MILITANTS REMAIN A PERSISTENT THREAT

The United States – which has had a long partnership with Nigeria’s military, providing training and selling weapons – said it carried out airstrikes in the northwest on Christmas Day to stop the targeting of Christians in the region.

Nigeria’s government and experts on the conflict have rejected claims of a concerted anti-Christian campaign, saying it oversimplifies a complex crisis.

It was not immediately clear who carried out the March 16 attack on the garrison town.

Uba said it was still being investigated, adding that both Boko Haram militants and ISWAP, an Islamic State-allied faction, remain a persistent threat, adapting their tactics over time.

“We continue to assess that these organizations will seek opportunistic targets and may attempt to demonstrate relevance through high-visibility attacks,” he said.