Independent experts have raised questions over the apparent target of the US strike in northwest Nigeria, as well as any domestic motivation Donald Trump may have had.

Kabir Adamu, managing director of Abuja-based Beacon Security and Intelligence Limited, tells Reuters that a Nigerian delegation travelled to the US after Donald Trump initially threatened to intervene in the country on 1 November.

“The attorney general was involved, and agreements were signed. Then we learned of US surveillance missions mapping terrorist locations,” he says.

However, Adamu also outlines what he believes may be partly behind the attacks:

“Trump is pandering to domestic evangelical Christian objectives with his ‘Christian genocide’ narrative.”

Check out our earlier post where a Yousra Elbagir breaks down how Trump’s base support in the US may react to the attacks.

Adamu questions the apparent target of the attack after local media reported explosions in the village of Jabo last night. 

MEZIESBLOG has not verified these reports.

Adamu adds: “We were told the Nigerian government okayed the attack, but why Jabo when there is no record of any group there?”

‘Cattle theft’

Confidence MacHarry, senior analyst at Lagos-based SBM Intelligence, believes that members of the Lakurawa sect, a strict Sunni Islamist movement that claims affiliation with the so-called Islamic State group, were the target of the strike.

He says:

“It’s very likely this is the group Trump referred to when mentioning US military strikes in Nigeria. They’ve also been linked to widespread cattle theft, with most of the stolen animals ending up in markets along the Nigeria-Niger border.”

That echoes our post, which outlined reports the group has been tormenting the villages it was invited to protect.

UK ‘recognises significant threat’ terror groups present

The UK government has not commented on the US strikes in Nigeria, which is a Commonwealth nation.

But MEZIESBLOG understands from a source that the Foreign Office recognises the “significant threat” terror groups present at home and abroad, including to “vulnerable communities”.