EDITORIAL: ISWAP drone attack: The necessity of being proactive

Non-state actors are unrelenting in deepening the insurgency in the North-east, despite renewed efforts by the military to crush them. The Islamic State’s West Africa Province (ISWAP), one of the fundamentalist groups active in the region, plans to deploy more drones in attacking military bases this year. This would lead to a dangerous escalation of our insecurity crisis if this becomes a reality.

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A news report published by this newspaper last week, based on a confidential security assessment it sighted, revealed that ISWAP has enriched or expanded its drone capability, and it is on the cusp of launching well-coordinated aerial assaults against military facilities in Borno and Yobe states. A swift pre-emptive strategic response is needed to contain this threat quickly.

Between 2023 and October 2025, these terrorists deployed some unmanned aerial vehicles. Four of them, armed with locally made grenades, were used in attacking the military’s Forward Operating Base in Wajikoro, Borno State. The assault left five soldiers wounded. The military responded with aerial and ground strikes, which resulted in the death of about 50 insurgents.

A similar attack happened in Dikwa in October, which Governor Babagana Zulum spoke about in Mafa town, while commiserating with victims of terror attacks. He said, “This is frightening. In Dikwa, I was told that drone was used. The proliferation of drones, particularly in the hands of non-state actors, is of great concern (to) the entire country.”

The daring-do of terrorists in using drone technology to reinforce their ordnance coincides with the time Nigeria and the US recently forged a strong partnership against them, following the diplomatic row that arose from President Donald Trump’s redesignation of Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern.

As such, Nigeria needs to critically evaluate this new threat and seek tailored assistance from nations that have successfully waged asymmetric warfare. In the present circumstance, strengthening our airspace and defence mechanisms towards detecting and destroying rogue drones is imperative.

Hence, we believe that Nigeria needs to urgently partner with well-meaning countries worldwide that have the technological capabilities and materiel to help neutralise this and other sophisticated security threats, and are willing to offer their support without making the sort of return demands that could become critical sources of vulnerability that would compromise the country’s wellbeing, whether in terms of a debt trap or other related snares.

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Recently, the US delivered what it described as “critical military supplies” to the country, barely three weeks after its 25 December missile attack on the Sokoto-based Lakurawa terror groups, in a joint military operation with Nigeria. Still, the Tinubu administration would need to seek out additional sources from countries in the West and also Asia, which can offer the crucial military hardware and intelligence support required, while being very conscious of not becoming a pawn in the geopolitics that tend to define these sorts of assistance, even when they are essentially commercial endeavours.

In 2023, the Institute of Security Studies (ISS) raised the alarm that ISWAP was on the verge of deploying drones in its attacks. And following the Wajikoro drone incident, a security meeting by the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF), then under the command of General Godwin Mutkut, reviewed the emergent threat and admitted the lack of counter-drone technology to contain it.

Unfortunately, the Republic of Niger has pulled out of the coalition that comprises Nigeria, Benin, Chad, Niger and Cameroon. With Chad’s repeated threats to also withdraw, citing ineffectiveness and underfunding of the MNJTF, which exposes its military base to deadly Boko Haram attacks, this regional counter-insurgency force is no longer fit for purpose. This should compel Nigeria to continually think strategically.

ISWAP’s drone supply chains have to be broken and unravelled. There are known smuggling corridors and trafficking networks in the Lake Chad region. They oxygenate their criminal activities. Marte, a town in Borno, for instance, provides easy access to Lake Chad – one of the gateways to the Sahel region, from where foreign insurgents with links to the global jihadist movement, and medium, small and light weapons, flood into Nigeria. It is a critical lifeline that must be blocked.

READ ALSO: ISWAP terrorists acquire more drones, plan coordinated attacks on Nigerian troops

The ₦3.154 trillion budgeted for defence this year, the highest sectoral allocation, must be put to good use to concretise Nigeria’s prioritisation of national security and counter-insurgency operations. If terrorists could acquire drones, deploy them for surveillance and intelligence gathering, it would be an embarrassment of epic proportions for the Nigerian state to play second fiddle to them in this evolving war technology.

Defeating the insurgents will require Nigeria to get it right on intelligence gathering. Questions are still being asked since the US Christmas Day bombing in Sokoto: where is the footage of the terrorists targeted and killed? Nigeria is said to have provided the US with the intelligence with which it struck.

More rigour is equally needed in reaching conclusions on actionable intelligence. There is no way a US satellite would have missed images of the victims if the intelligence given was precise. ISWAP’s plans, if executed, will beget reprisals from our military. But it should not be similar to the bombing of 85 civilians who had gathered for a religious ceremony in Tudun Biri village, Kaduna State, in 2023, in a clear case of the danger of errant intelligence in counterinsurgency actions.

The intelligence agencies, therefore, should retool, as President Tinubu has charged them to, in order to boost the overall operational efficiency of the military and other security operatives. They need to be ahead of the terrorists, bandits and kidnappers who have doubled down on their nefarious activities since the year began, in Adamawa, Borno, Edo, Plateau, Benue, Zamfara and Anambra states.

This war is winnable, and Nigeria is running out of excuses for not doing so!