MAIDUGURI, Nigeria—On the evening of May 16, the village of Metele in Nigeria’s Borno state was hit by a series of airstrikes carried out in coordination between the U.S. and Nigerian militaries.

“Children were playing, women were preparing meals, and there was nothing to suggest that anything unusual was about to happen,” recalled Goni Ahmed, a local resident who directly witnessed the strikes. He described a scene in which village life was suddenly destroyed by the attack. “First, we heard aircraft overhead. Shortly afterward, there were loud explosions that shook the ground. After the blasts, I could hear people shouting, crying, and calling for assistance. The sounds of panic and confusion continued for quite some time.”

Panic enveloped Metele and villagers fled their homes, not knowing if further strikes would take place. “Many people in the community still remember those days as some of the most difficult we have experienced,” Ahmed recalled…The strikes were part of an expanding war between the Nigerian government and local Islamist groups which has drawn the increased involvement of the Trump administration, with little scrutiny. Metele, a remote community in northern Borno State near the Nigeria-Niger border, has long been affected by insurgent activities. Security sources and local residents have frequently identified the area and its surroundings as locations where fighters affiliated with the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) operate…

In the days immediately after the bombing of Metele, U.S-Africa Command (AFRICOM) announced strikes across northeastern Nigeria, allegedly killing huge numbers of ISWAP fighters, claiming in a statement posted online that, “In coordination with the Nigerian Armed Forces our #counterterrorism efforts from May 16-18, 2026, eliminated more than 175 ISIS terrorists in Northeastern Nigeria.”

Trump claimed they had killed Abu Bilal al-Minuki, a global commander in the Islamic State, as well as a number of other senior leaders of the group. The Islamic State has not confirmed these or other killings; Nigeria previously claimed in 2024 to have killed al-Minuki. In a post on Truth Social the President described the strikes as “flawlessly executed” and called al-Minuki “the most active terrorist in the world.”

The Nigerian Army echoed these statements, calling it a “landmark joint counter-terrorism operation of historic significance.” The army said the raid in Metele was a “complex precision air-land operation” that killed other “terrorist commanders.”

Yet villagers in Metele said that the attacks hit residential areas and killed innocent people. “The community experienced a tragic airstrike attack recently which caused heavy casualties and destruction in Metele,” Zannah Abba Aji, the village head of Metele told Drop Site News. He was in Maiduguri, the state capital, when the strikes took place. “Many innocent civilians were affected during the incident,” he said.

In the aftermath of the attack, Aji gathered a list of 27 people that he said were civilians that were killed in the attack. The list, which he shared with Drop Site, included 12 women and children.

Other villagers who were injured in the bombings were sent by truck south to Maiduguri for treatment. In an interview, Dr. Adam Asil Tijjani, who works at the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital, confirmed that several noncombatants had been killed in the strikes, telling Drop Site that two women and four children received in the aftermath of the bombings had died from their injuries there. Tijjani said that the hospital was overwhelmed with patients with burns, fractures, shrapnel wounds, and trauma-related injuries—forcing them to route some of the casualties to another facility called the State Specialist Hospital. “We received many patients within a short period,” he said.

Neither AFRICOM nor the Nigerian army responded to a request for comment on the civilian deaths…

Crosspost from https://news.abolish.capital/post/55399