Sokoto (Nigeria), Updated At : 08:44 AM Feb 05, 2026 IST
Armed extremists killed at least 162 people in attacks on the villages of Woro and Nuku in Kwara state on Tuesday evening, a lawmaker said.
Mohammed Omar Bio, the Member of Parliament for the area, said the assaults were carried out by the Lakurawa, an armed group affiliated with the Islamic State. No one has officially claimed responsibility.
Ayodeji Emmanuel Babaomo, the Red Cross secretary in Kwara, said the organisation has been unable to reach the remote communities—about eight hours from the state capital and near the Benin border—where “scores of people were killed.” Local television footage showed bodies on the ground, some with hands tied, and burning houses.
State governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq described the attack as a “cowardly expression of frustration by terrorist cells” reacting to ongoing military operations against militants in the state.
Nigeria faces a multifaceted security crisis: an insurgency by Islamic militants in the northeast, and rising kidnappings and raids by armed gangs across the northwest and north-central regions. Separately on Tuesday, unknown gunmen killed at least 13 people in Doma village in Katsina state, police spokesman Abubakar Sadiq Aliyu said. Last week, Boko Haram extremists in the northeast killed at least 36 people in attacks on a construction site and an army base.
Armed groups in Nigeria include factions linked to IS: the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) in the northeast and the lesser-known Islamic State Sahel Province, locally called Lakurawa, active in the northwest. The Nigerian military has said Lakurawa has roots in neighbouring Niger and expanded its activity in border communities after a 2023 military coup.
James Barnett, a researcher at the Hudson Institute, said the Kwara attack was most likely carried out by Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad (JAS), a Boko Haram faction implicated in recent massacres in the region.
The United States has taken steps in response to the worsening security situation. US Africa Command sent a small team of military officers to Nigeria, and in December US forces conducted airstrikes against IS-affiliated militants there. Nigeria has also been the focus of heightened US diplomatic scrutiny amid comments from US President Donald Trump threatening action against the country, alleging insufficient protection of its Christian population.
