Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Africa Brief.

The highlights this week: Analysts raise questions about the official White House narrative behind recent U.S. strikes on Nigeria, Benin holds elections after a failed coup attempt, and China’s foreign minister tours the continent.

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Africa Brief.

The highlights this week: Analysts raise questions about the official White House narrative behind recent U.S. strikes on Nigeria, Benin holds elections after a failed coup attempt, and China’s foreign minister tours the continent.

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Nigeria, like Iran and Venezuela, has become a target of the United States’ increasingly aggressive foreign policy under President Donald Trump. The U.S. military launched airstrikes on northwestern Nigeria’s Sokoto state on Christmas Day, claiming that it was protecting Christians from what Trump called “ISIS Terrorist Scum.”

Last week, Trump told the New York Times that further airstrikes in Nigeria were on the table. “I’d love to make it a one-time strike. But if they continue to kill Christians, it will be a many-time strike,” Trump said. Washington alleges that Nigerian Christians are facing systematic persecution and killings compared to other Nigerians, an assertion that is not supported by data.

Expert analyses, media reports, and eyewitness accounts contest the White House’s official narrative surrounding the Dec. 25, 2025, strikes. Even as U.S. Africa Command released a statement that “multiple ISIS terrorists were killed in the ISIS camps,” residents of Muslim-majority Sokoto said a large number of the missiles hit empty farms.

An aide to Nigerian President Bola Tinubu called the U.S. claims “sketchy,” telling Sky News that the U.S. attacks hit an emerging jihadi group named Lakurawa, whose links to the Islamic State are disputed by some analysts. Lakurawa fighters are currently incapable of carrying out large-scale attacks compared to Nigerian Islamic State and al Qaeda affiliates, experts told Foreign Policy.

Analysts say that the strikes on Lakurawa made little sense, given that there are deadlier groups operating in northeast Nigeria. They include the United Nations-sanctioned Ansaru, an al Qaeda affiliate that splintered from Boko Haram around 2012. Former........

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