At least 23 people were killed in a series of insurgent attacks in Maiduguri, the capital of Nigeria’s Borno State, underscoring the persistent security crisis in the country’s northeast. The bombings are the latest in a long chain of violence attributed to Islamist insurgent groups that have terrorized the region for over a decade. What makes the attacks particularly notable is that they come despite ongoing U.S. military assistance to Nigerian forces — raising hard questions about the effectiveness of international counterterrorism partnerships in the Sahel and Lake Chad basin. Members of the Nigerian Red Cross were photographed assisting victims at a local hospital, a grim reminder that for millions of civilians, daily life remains shadowed by the threat of mass-casualty violence.
