https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/us-secretly-involved-in-attack-that-killed-civilians-in-nige
US secretly involved in attack that killed civilians in Nigeria
An internally displaced person’s camp, the Rann IDP camp, in Nigeria was a target of a 2017 airstrike in which the US played a then-unacknowledged role, according to a report published by The Intercept. The strike resulted in the death of over 160 people.
Prior to the air strike, a surveillance plane circled above the Rann IDP camp. The camp used to house around 43,000 people and was supervised by the Nigerian military. The air strike hit the area where most people drew water from a borehole. After that, the jet targeted the tents where people sheltered during their displacement.
The airstrike killed nine humanitarian aid workers and left over 120 civilians injured. The Nigerian air force conveyed feelings of regret for carrying out the airstrike which was referred to as an instance of “US-Nigerian operations” according to a previously secret US military document obtained exclusively by The Intercept.
The number of victims
To this day, the number of individuals that were killed in the blast remains unknown. A list of 127 victims' names - with children making up the majority of the list - was sent to Agnès Callamard, who at the time was a United Nations special rapporteur on the extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions in Nigeria.
While a local government official said there were 236 dead, witnesses who participated in the funeral claim 167 people were buried in the Rann cemetery. Following the incident, several ball bearings were reported to have been discovered by witnesses.
According to Callamard's assessment, photographs of the deceased and injured "showed both massive and smaller wounds, consistent with firing of ball bearings-based ammunitions."
According to Callamard, the claims that these munitions were deployed are "extremely serious" and "should have been independently investigated." Various experts argued that the US must come clean about such instances, across the world, given that the US has a history of secrecy when it comes to such attacks.
Post-incident chronology
According to the abovementioned secretive document, the US launched an investigation into the airstrike following a mention of US contributions, which did indeed happen though secretly, by the Nigerian armed forces. However, the document also alleges that an investigation by the US Africa Command was secretly commissioned to Brig. Gen. Frank J. Stokes. This investigation was not previously reported nor were its reports published, said The Intercept, but it served to avoid questions of wrongdoing or recommendation for disciplinary action.
The attack, conducted on January 17, 2017, was aimed, according to The Intercept report, against Boko Haram, a terrorist group located near Rann, Nigeria, near the Cameroonian and Chadian borders. The Nigerian and US troops declared, originally, that they had no knowledge of the presence of a civilian camp in the region. However, a Nigerian human rights activist probed the matter. Callamard noted the absurdity of the strike, highlighting that the tents were visible from the air, according to satellite imagery.
“The military presence in Rann, its role in establishing the camp and their facilitation of the humanitarian distribution on the day, raises many questions,” Callamard wrote in a 2021 report adding that “No independent investigation was carried out.”
The Intercept questioned AFRICOM on the findings of Stokes' inquiry and the level of American involvement in the strike, but AFRICOM did not respond.
About the “black programs”
Strokes, then-deputy director of AFRICOM’s directorate for strategy engagement and programs, had to be “sensitive” in preparing the formerly secretive report, as stated in The Intercept. The reason behind this is the existence of “special access programs” also known as SAPs or “black programs.” Access to information from these programs is highly restricted to a need-to-know basis, with entire programs being unacknowledged and publicly denied at times while their funding is hidden within the federal budget, as stated in The Intercept.
AFRICOM spokesperson Kelly Cahalan claimed that AFRICOM “was not involved” in the airstrike on the Rann IDP camp. She pointed out that the CIA or Special Operations forces might carry out covert operations throughout the African continent while operating inside their own command structures. Drone attacks, for instance, are overseen by AFRICOM, but a Joint Special Operations Command or JSOC task force typically conducts them.
Part 1