The United States resumed intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) flights over north-east Nigeria on Saturday, following U.S. air strikes on Islamic State-linked militants in Sokoto state on Thursday, flight‑tracking data and open-source researchers said.
Sahel-focused tracker Brant Philip posted data showing a Gulfstream V — a long‑range business jet often modified for ISR missions — operating over Borno state and the Sambisa forest, a known stronghold for the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP). Philip said the flights resumed after a one‑day pause that followed Thursday’s strikes.
The aircraft’s movements were linked by flight‑tracking data to Tenax Aerospace, a U.S.-based special‑mission aircraft provider that has carried out ISR contracts in Africa. The data show the mission began on Nov. 24 after a departure from Ghana — a logistics hub for U.S. military operations on the continent — and that flights over Nigeria have occurred almost daily since then.
A former U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters that the operations have included efforts to track an American pilot who was kidnapped in neighbouring Niger and to gather intelligence on militant groups operating in Nigeria and the Lake Chad basin.
The surveillance flights resumed days after Nuhu Ribadu, Nigeria’s national security adviser, met with U.S. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth in Washington. Hegseth said after the meeting that the U.S. Department of Defense would work “aggressively” with Nigeria to end what he described as the “persecution of Christians by jihadist terrorists.” President Donald Trump subsequently authorised strikes on targets in Sokoto; he said more strikes would follow.
Tenax Aerospace and the U.S. Department of Defense did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
