At least a third of BGM-109 Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles fired by the United States military against ISIS targets in Nigeria last month have apparently failed.
The attack, which took place on December 25, was carried out on orders from President Donald Trump, who a month earlier warned the West African nation over repeated attacks on Christians.
“Tonight, at my direction as Commander in Chief, the United States launched a powerful and deadly strike against ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria, who have been targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians, at levels not seen for many years, and even Centuries!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social network at the time.
The U.S. military’s Africa Command (AFRICOM), from its side, said that it launched the strikes “at the request of Nigerian authorities” in Sokoto State, “killing multiple ISIS terrorists.” The command released footage showing the launch of a single Tomahawk land-attack cruise missile from an unspecified U.S. Navy warship.
Nigeria welcomed the U.S. attack at the time, stressing that it will continue to cooperate with the U.S. in a statement released by its Foreign Ministry.
A U.S. defense official later told The New York Times the strikes involved over a dozen Tomahawk missiles targeting two camps of ISIS.
Although AFRICOM did not say exactly which group was targeted, the affiliation with ISIS suggests that the strikes hit members of Lakurawa. The ISIS-affiliated terrorist group became very active in Sokoto and the neighboring state of Kebbi over the past year.
Questions about the effectiveness of the attack emerged right away, with local officials in Sokoto not reporting any casualties, and photos that surfaced online later showing the warheads of at least three Tomahawk missiles which apparently failed.
An additional unexploding warhead was found on January 5, which indicates that at least a third of the missiles failed to reach their targets.
The Tomahawk was developed all the way back in the 1970s. The latest versions of the subsonic cruise missile are guided via a GPS-aided Inertial navigation system, in addition to a terrain contour matching system that allows it to fly at an altitude as low as 30 meters. The range of the missile is reported to be around 1,700 kilometers.
Various estimates, most of which rely on official U.S. military numbers, state that the failure rate of the Tomahawk is around 15 percent. However, the last attack in Nigeria shows a failure rate of more than 30 percent. This high rate came despite the fact that the missile faced no air defenses or electronic warfare means during the attack.
Nigeria, a country of more than 200 million people, is divided between the largely Muslim north and mostly Christian south.
Armed groups, including many affiliated with ISIS, have been engaged in a conflict that has been largely confined to the northeast and northwest of the country. While Christians have been killed, especially in recent months, most of the victims have been Muslims.
Trump likely made the decision to launch the attack in order to appease U.S. evangelical groups and some lawmakers who have repeatedly called on his administration to take action to stop what they describe as a “Christian genocide” in Nigeria. The questionable results of the attack suggest that the U.S. military is not fully aware of the situation there.
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recent months saw a large u.s. military build up in the caribbean, with socom deploying assists in puerto rico and near trinidad and tobago…………………………… https://psee.io/8jqu9r
go away ramses
lmao 🤣 overrated us military junk.
wall st. don’t care.
you don’t even know if it’s true really you’re just trusting sources of information from people you don’t know at all. that’s what’s wrong with the whole world people comply without really knowing anything just trusting sources.
americunts are inferior incompetent ugly species
ramses working overtime lubrication must have greased the wheel.
as, usual the fake votes
they were decoys, expired military surplus.
lame excuse.
john waynestein
you don’t even know if it’s true really you’re just trusting sources of information from people you don’t know at all. that’s what’s wrong with the whole world people comply without really knowing anything just trusting sources.
get off ramses, with your umerica regime change robot its a global communist takeover you twit that you’re backing.
retardado mental acha que vão acreditar nas tuas fake news idiostas
decoys don’t have real warheads
decoys are used against air defences that these targets don’t have.
mísseis porcaria!
the jews have ordered trump to use the pretext of “killing christians” to divert attention from the jews killing christians an bombing churches in palestine, lebanon syria and elsewhere.
they ve been killing christians there for years now. and exactly what type of christians they are is never clarified, are they catholics protestants jehovahs witnesses, seventh day adventists, orthodox what? were not told why not? christians are not united they’re very different groupings, often warring against each other so we do need to know.
the american “good guys” globalist campaign stays on course.
so what does that make your mob then? i suppose you don’t think that you’re the good guys in your course? here’s a clue trump didn’t start any of this your types did.
so what does that make your mob then? i suppose you don’t think that you’re the good guys on your course of saving the world from democracy ? here’s a clue trump didn’t start any of this your types did.allegedly
no jews were hurt in the operation
secret air defences made from old oil drums , rebar and coconut shells.
i would suggest the nigerians reverse engineer the missiles and make their own copy, but most african nations don’t even have the expertise or desire to make unguided rockets.