“France signed an agreement with ISWAP fighters,” said Niger’s putschist President Abdourahamane Tchiani during an interview in December of 2024 speaking of the Islamic State’s West Africa Province, “And Nigerian leaders are aware of it.” Tchiani spent much of his hour-and-a-half interview charging France and Nigeria with fomenting terror in his country, referring to the “Lakurawa” terror group, in an effort to bring down his regime. Among these accusations, Tchiani may have inadvertently stumbled upon an important detail that many in the Nigerian media and even government have misunderstood—the emergence of Lakurawa is connected to the expansion of the Islamic State.
To observers of West African security, this comes as no surprise. The Islamic State’s creeping toward the Niger-Nigeria border area has been a concern for several years. This was confirmed by the United Nations’ Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team in the summer of 2019, which warned of the group’s ambitions for Northwest Nigeria. Just months ago, the same team confirmed the presence of the Islamic State “affiliated” group.
Lakurawa’s Background
Present-day Salafi-Jihadist activity in Northwest Nigeria is traced back to the late 2010s, when the region’s worsening banditry crisis prompted local communities in Sokoto State to seek protection from non-state actors. Locals called these men the “Lakurawa,” a term loosely adapted from the French-derived term for “the recruits.” They were herdsmen, possibly from Niger, who scholars believe to be members of the Islamic State’s Sahel Province (ISSP). While the terrorists initially supported the locals in fighting off bandits, relations soured when they attempted to impose Islamic law on their hosts. Bans on music, dancing, and cigarettes were enforced with harsh physical punishment, and punitive taxes, or Zakat, were placed on local pastoralist communities. The traditional leaders and locals who once saw the group as protectors now saw them as a threat. Tensions rose between the terrorists and the local population, resulting in Lakurawa fighters killing the District Head of Balle, a town in Sokoto. In response, the Nigerian Armed Forces (NAF) launched an offensive to drive the jihadists across the border, killing fighters and burning down forests along the way.
After their expulsion from Sokoto, the group maintained a presence along the Niger border, building a logistics hub and a base in the Tahoua Region. In 2023, after a coup in Niger strained relations between Niamey and Abuja, bilateral border security operations ended. It was this environment, researchers say that allowed the terrorists to reestablish themselves in Nigeria.
On July 13, 2024, six Nigerien soldiers were killed when gunmen attacked the Benin-Niger Export Pipeline (BNEP) near the village of Tibiri. While it was unclear who was responsible at the time of the attack, later reports revealed this to be one of the group’s first notable attacks since their reactivation. In the following months, the terrorists increased their activities, expanding out of their historical domain in Sokoto and establishing camps in the neighboring Kebbi and Zamfara states. On November 9, 2024, Lakurawa gunmen on motorbikes arrived at the village of Mera in Kebbi State, where they massacred 15 civilians and stole livestock. Once again, the military responded.
The Northwest theater was now energized. Within days, airstrikes under Operation Farautar Mujiya, the air component of the counter-banditry operation Fansan Yamma, would be targeting suspected Lakurawa camps across the region. Soldiers patrolled villages and raided terrorist hideouts. In December, Nigeria’s Special Operations Brigade deployed to the region under the new Operation Forest Sanity III, assisting the Army’s 8th Division in their operations against Lakurawa.
Since counter-Lakurawa operations began, Nigerian military and political officials alike have claimed major successes. On December 13th, 2024, the NAF would announce the destruction of 22 Lakurawa camps and killing of “scores” of terrorists. More apparent successes would be reported throughout early 2025, with the destruction of even more camps and the killings of even more fighters, including a senior Lakurawa commander.
Despite the military’s claims of success on the battlefield, Lakurawa remains capable of launching deadly attacks. On the morning of March 9, 2025, days after the NAF announced the death of a Lakurawa commander, the terrorists launched a coordinated assault on seven villages along the Nigeria-Niger border. Eleven civilians were killed and several homes were razed during the attacks.
Profiling “Lakurawa”
Estimates put the group’s membership at around 200 fighters. Tactically, their behavior mirrors ISSP. The group’s deadly raids on civilian and military targets, executed by gunmen on motorbikes, draw stark similarities to how ISSP operates just across the border. The group also uses ambush tactics, setting up roadblocks to attack unsuspecting passersby. When targeting civilians in particular, the group will often rustle livestock. There have also been reports of Lakurawa members using UAVs for reconnaissance operations, an established tactic of ISSP.
A key indicator of Lakurawa’s affiliation with ISSP is the geography in which the group operates. Spatially, attacks attributed to Lakurawa sit adjacent to attacks attributed to and claimed by ISSP. Since January, dozens of attacks have been recorded in Nigeria’s Kebbi State, along the border with Niger’s Dosso region, a documented ISSP attack zone.
Geography confirms what tactics already suggest. Geospatial analysis of Lakurawa-related activity between November 2024 and May 2025, shows that the group is not only clustered near ISSP strongholds but appears to be expanding along similar vectors of movement. These attacks match the pattern of ISSP expansion, particularly in Dosso where the group’s activities evolved from nonviolent efforts such as establishing support zones and building logistical capacity to carrying out violent attacks. What began as quiet consolidation has turned into increasingly frequent violence. This geographic overlap is not coincidental; it reflects operational continuity and shared intent.
Misunderstanding the Threat and Course Correction
Even in the face of growing evidence, the Nigerian government and national media have characterized this phenomenon as a local issue. Whether driven by political calculus or institutional inertia, failing to acknowledge the growing security concern in the context of recent regional developments presents great risk.
It is important to understand that this ambiguity as to whether or not Lakurawa is affiliated with the Islamic State is entirely intentional. In fact, a core strategy of the Islamic State involves strategic silence – deliberately choosing when and where to claim attacks to serve operational goals. The Islamic State intentionally obscures its footprint. It often refrains from claiming attacks not because it isn’t involved, but because secrecy offers strategic advantage. Separating operations in Nigeria’s north-west from the ISSP label allows the group to operate semi-clandestinely, free to take advantage of ISSP’s broader zones of support and logistical networks.
The transnational nature of ISSP makes its presence more durable and harder to destroy. As long as militants can retreat across the border into Niger or other neighboring countries, no airstrike will be decisive. Defeating such a force requires strong transnational cooperation between regional forces, to prevent the group from using border regions as zones from which attacks can be launched. Weak border security and failures to uphold border security agreements in the aftermath of the July 2023 coup in Niger have been pointed to as catalysts for ISSP’s move towards north-west Nigeria. If the goal is to rid north-west Nigeria of ISSP, Nigeria should work to strengthen regional counter-terrorism cooperation, particularly with Niger.
However, something that is perhaps even more important for Nigeria’s success is preventing the narrative from slipping away. Failure to accurately assess the current situation weakens strategic clarity. In the absence of a common narrative, confusion emerges and decision making stagnates. Public trust is sapped when agencies contradict one another or when the story changes from one week to the next. The Islamic State understands this and exploits it. Confusion benefits them. Nigeria’s leaders must close the narrative gap, not with propaganda showing tactical successes, but with accurate and consistent messaging.
Conclusion
Nigerian officials face a choice. They can continue framing Lakurawa as a novel and unexpected insurgency, or they can recognize what the evidence increasingly shows: this is a front for the Islamic State’s expansion into north-west Nigeria. The Nigerian Armed Forces may claim victories, but without strategic clarity, these wins amount to little more than tactical noise. The Islamic State thrives off of confusion and deliberately works to mar narratives they deem inconvenient. Ignoring these facts only benefits the enemy. Nigeria doesn’t need to overhaul its entire security doctrine, but it does need to look honestly at what it’s fighting. Anything less invites more confusion, more harm to civilians, and more room for the Islamic State to grow.
