The United States has withdrawn most of the troops deployed to Nigeria for a special operation against "Islamic State" (IS) fighters in May, the US military has confirmed, but it continues to share intelligence with Nigerian forces.
"We have withdrawn much of our forces that were just there for that operation," said General Dagvin Anderson of US Africa Command (AFRICOM), speaking at a conference of African defense chiefs in Luanda, Angola, on Thursday.
"But [we] are continuing the partnership that Nigeria has asked for to help continue with the intelligence sharing and the understanding that's necessary to be able to prosecute these difficult tasks," he said.US troops in Nigeria are primarily there to train Nigerian soldiers in counterterrorism and provide support with intelligenceImage: James Sheehan/U.S. Army/REUTERS
What were US troops doing in Nigeria?
In May, US and Nigerian forces killed nearly 200 IS fighters in the Lake Chad region in the northeast of the country. Among those killed were Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, the jihadi group's global second-in-command.Nigerian Defense Minister Christopher Musa told the AFP news agency that US combat troops had deployed specifically for that operation, which also disrupted broader IS communications and operations.
