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US congressional report explores option of not delivering any Aukus nuclear submarines to Australia

A new United States congressional report openly contemplates not selling any nuclear submarines to Australia – as promised under the Aukus agreement – because America wants to retain control of the submarines for a potential conflict with China over Taiwan. The report by the US Congressional Research Service, Congress’s policy research arm, posits an alternative “military division of labour” under which the submarines earmarked for sale to Australia are instead retained under US command to be sailed out of Australian bases. One of the arguments made against the US selling submarines to Australia is that Australia has refused to commit to supporting America in a conflict with China over Taiwan. Boats under US command could be deployed into that conflict. The report, released on 26 January, cites statements from the Australian defence minister, Richard Marles, and the chief of navy that Australia would make “no promises … that Australia would support the United States” in the event of war with China over Taiwan. Sign up: AU Breaking News email “Selling three to five Virginia-class SSNs [nuclear-powered general-purpose attack submarines] to Australia would thus convert those SSNs from boats that would be available for use in a US-China crisis or conflict into boats that might not be available for use in a US-China crisis or conflict,” the report argues. “This could weaken rather than strengthen deterrence and warfighting capability in connection with a US-China crisis or conflict.” Under the existing Aukus “optimal pathway’, Australia will first buy between three and five Virginia-class nuclear-powered conventionally armed submarines, the first in 2032. Following that, the first of eight Australian-built Aukus submarines, based on a UK design, is slated to be in the water “in the early 2040s”. But the Congressional Research report describes an alternative “military division of labour”, under which the US would not sell any Virginia-class submarines to Australia. The boats not sold to Australia “would instead be retained in US Navy service and operated out of Australia” alongside US and UK attack submarines already planned to rotate through Australian bases. The report speculated Australia could use the money saved to invest on other defence capabilities, even using those capabilities as a subordinate force in support of US missions. “Australia, instead of using funds to purchase, build, operate, and maintain its own SSNs, would instead invest those funds in other military capabilities – such as … long-range anti-ship missiles, drones, loitering munitions, B-21 long-range bombers … or systems for defending Australia against attack … so as to create an Australian capacity for performing other missions, including non-SSN military missions for both Australia and the United States.” The report also raises cybersecurity concerns, noting that “hackers linked to China” are “highly active” in attempting to penetrate Australian government and contractors’ computers. It argues that sharing nuclear submarine technology with another country “would increase the attack surface, meaning the number of potential digital and physical entry points that China, Russia, or some other country could attempt to penetrate to gain access to that technology”. The debate over whether the US should sell boats to Australia is also grounded in ongoing concern over low rates of shipbuilding in the US: the country’s shipyards are failing to build enough submarines to supply America’s own navy, let alone build boats for Australia. For the past 15 years, the US Navy has ordered boats at a rate of two a year, but its shipyards have never met that build rate “and since 2022 has been limited to about 1.1 to 1.2 boats per year, resulting in a growing backlog of boats procured but not yet built”. The US fleet currently has only three-quarters of the submarines it needs (49 boats of a force-level goal of 66). Shipyards need to build Virginia-class submarines at a rate of two a year to meet America’s own needs, and to lift that to 2.33 boats a year in order to be able to supply submarines to Australia. Legislation passed by the US Congress prohibits the sale of any submarine to Australia if the US needs it for its own fleet. The US commander-in-chief – the president of the day – must certify that America relinquishing a submarine “will not degrade the United States undersea capabilities”. The report argues that Australia’s strict nuclear non-proliferation laws could also weaken US submarine force projection under the current Aukus plan. Australian officials have consistently told US counterparts that, in adherence to Australia’s commitments as a non-nuclear weapon state under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Australia’s attack submarines can only ever be armed with conventional weapons. “Selling three to five Virginia-class SSNs to Australia would thus convert those SSNs from boats that could in the future be armed with the US nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile with an aim of enhancing deterrence,” the report states. The report – authored by Ronald O’Rourke, an analyst for naval affairs in the Congressional Research Service for more than four decades – also makes the case for retaining the current Aukus arrangement. It argues that selling Virginia-class boats would send “a strong signal to China of the collective determination of the United States and Australia, along with the UK, to counter China’s military modernisation effort”. “The fact that the United States has never before sold a complete SSN to another country – not even the UK – would underscore the depth of this determination, and thus the strength of the deterrent signal it would send.” It was also argued that selling nuclear-powered submarines would accelerate the establishment of an Australian submarine fleet “and thereby present China much sooner with a second allied decision-making centre – along with the United States – for attack submarine operations in the Indo-Pacific. “This would enhance deterrence of potential Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific by complicating Chinese military planning.” The report says selling Virginia-class boats to Australia would be comparable to assistance the US gave to the UK and France in the 20th century in establishing their nuclear submarine fleets and nuclear weapon arsenals. Previous Congressional Research Service reports have flagged the possibility of no submarines being available to sell to Australia, but Australia has previously rejected contemplation of any “division of labour” in lieu of acquiring submarines. The Guardian has approached Australia’s defence minister, Richard Marles, for comment.

US and Iran talks brought back from the brink after US relents on move to Oman

Talks between the US and Iran scheduled for Friday have been brought back from the brink of collapse after the US initially rejected Iran’s request to move them from Turkey to Oman without the presence of a group of Arab states. Iran’s foreign minister said late on Wednesday that the talks would proceed in Oman after reports of a last-minute effort by Arab states to convince the White House not to walk away from negotiations. “Nuclear talks with the United States are scheduled to be held in Muscat on about 10am Friday,” wrote the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi. “I’m grateful to our Omani brothers for making all necessary arrangements.” US officials have also indicated the talks in Oman will go forward. They will take place amid a massive buildup of US naval and airpower in the region and appear to be a last chance for Tehran to avert a US strike against the country’s leadership and nuclear programme. The talks had collapsed earlier on Wednesday as Iran vowed they would be confined to its nuclear programme only. The US had demanded the talks also address Tehran’s ballistic missile programme, which Iran had ruled out. Asked whether Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, should be worried after reports of the collapse of negotiations, Trump responded: “I would say he should be very worried, yeah, he should be.” It is not clear whether the dispute has been fully resolved. Axios reported that the talks had been reinstated after the US was approached by a number of Arab and Muslim countries urging it not to abandon negotiations with Iran. Despite its relatively weak negotiating hand, Iran has said the only issue on the agenda can be the assurances that Tehran is willing to provide that its nuclear programme has no military purpose or objective. It says the talks must be held in Oman, where most of the previous rounds of talks were held. Iran had thought it had forced businessman Jared Kushner, who is also Donald Trump’s son-in-law, and Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy, to agree to these terms and drop the plans for the talks in Turkey. Instead, it has been reported that Witkoff will travel to Doha on Thursday and then return to Washington without meeting the Iranians. The US has a large naval fleet in the region that Trump has said he is willing to use to force the Iranians to back down. Explaining US thinking before news of the apparent collapse started to circulate, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said: “We thought we had an established forum that had been agreed to in Turkey that was put together by a number of partners who wanted to attend and be a part of it. I saw conflicting reports yesterday from the Iranian side saying that they had not agreed to that, so that’s still being worked through.” He added: “At the end of the day, the United States is prepared to engage, and has always been prepared to engage, with Iran. In order for talks to actually lead to something meaningful, they will have to include certain things, and that includes the range of their ballistic missiles “That includes their sponsorship of terrorist organisations across the region. That includes the nuclear programme. And that includes the treatment of their own people.” His remarks, diplomats said, did not preclude the discussions on these topics being sequenced, as Turkey had recommended, and left an ambiguity as to what other issues might be discussed if the nuclear file is initially addressed. Iran had been hoping that the opening of the talks in Oman might lead to a broad statement by both sides to agree to negotiate and to de-escalate tensions. This would allow direct talks to start. But the US appears to be determined that its agenda and format, one that appeared to have the support of some Arab states, should prevail. The US believes that Iran is in a weak negotiating position and Tehran has badly overreached itself. No guarantee existed anyway that the nuclear file can be resolved since Iran insists it must retain its right to enrich uranium inside Iran and that there is no need for its existing stockpile of highly enriched uranium to be transferred out of the country to a third party such as Russia. On Thursday, Russia said its proposal to take the Iranian uranium stockpile still stood. Rubio added: “Iran has only shown willingness to discuss its nuclear programme, albeit not on the terms demanded by the US – for the Islamic Republic to agree not to enrich uranium on its own territory and export all of its already enriched stockpiles out of the country.” He added that the US did not see agreeing to meet the Iranians as a concession or an act of legitimisation. Tensions within Iran about its negotiating stance were reflected in criticism made by some Iranians of the aggressive posture being adopted by Ali Shamkhani, the former secretary of the supreme national security council of Iran from 2013 to 2023. He has warned that war is likely and said Iran need only reduce the purity of its uranium stock.

EU deal on Ukraine loan could boost UK if it agrees to help pay costs

The UK could reap greater benefits from a €90bn (£78bn) EU loan for Ukraine, if it agrees to help pay the cost of borrowing, after European countries signed off long-awaited financial aid for Kyiv. British firms could have greater opportunities to supply defence equipment to Ukraine funded by the loan if the government agrees a “fair” contribution towards EU borrowing costs. Senior EU diplomats meeting on Wednesday approved a long-awaited loan for Ukraine, which includes the new element of a more open door towards the UK. The UK clause, including the requirement for British financial contribution, had been approved by Monday, according to three diplomatic sources. EU member states, however, will need to hold further talks on how to include the UK, including agreeing a list of products that could be procured from British suppliers. The decision comes after the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, signalled he would like to reopen talks with the EU on a defence pact. Negotiations to join the EU’s €150bn Security Action for Europe (Safe) programme collapsed last year. As the current Safe scheme progresses without the UK, the loan for Kyiv offers a more immediate way for the EU and UK to find rapprochement on defence. The loan is a crucial lifeline for Ukraine, which has been enduring months of brutal Russian attacks damaging its energy and heating systems, leaving people in the cold and dark, while the country is in the grip of a bitterly cold winter. EU leaders last year agreed to lend Ukraine the money to fill a critical funding gap in 2026 and 2027, as Kyiv risks running out of money to fund its defence, pay public servants and pensions. The loan will be funded by borrowing on capital markets, secured against unused spending in the EU budget. EU leaders alighted on this solution, after disagreeing over the alternative of securing the loan against Russia’s frozen assets. Under the plan, €60bn is earmarked for Ukraine’s defence and €30bn for general budget support. The EU has said Ukraine would be required to buy military equipment from domestic suppliers, the EU or closely associated countries, such as Norway. But if critical kit was not available in those countries, Kyiv could secure permission from Brussels to buy from other countries, including the US The intention is to ensure a European preference, but give Kyiv flexibility to buy, for example, US Patriot missile defence systems. The updated version of the proposal, approved on Wednesday, has introduced two new clauses, aimed at giving Kyiv greater flexibility to buy from non-EU countries that have signed security pacts with the union. One clause is aimed at the UK. Ukraine would be allowed to buy military equipment from a country that has committed to “provide a fair and proportionate financial contribution to the costs arising from [EU] borrowing” commensurate with the value of contracts won. In addition, the country should also have a security and defence partnership with the EU and be able to demonstrate it is providing “financial and military support to Ukraine in a significant manner”. The UK and EU signed a security and defence partnership last May as part of the reset. An EU diplomat told the Guardian it made sense to open up the possibility for Ukraine to buy weapons in the UK – and for the UK to make a financial contribution. “It is natural to ask the UK to participate in interest repayment proportionally to the contracts UK firms would obtain. Otherwise EU taxpayers would be subsidising UK industry.” No figure for a “fair” UK financial contribution has been proposed. Some sources say this is a deliberate effort to avoid intense focus on finances, while others say it would be impossible to propose a UK contribution without knowing the UK’s potential involvement. Before Wednesday’s decision, a UK government spokesperson said: “We do not comment on internal EU processes.” The loan now needs to be approved by the European parliament, with the aim of releasing the first tranche of funds from April. According to EU estimates the €90bn covers two-thirds of Ukraine’s funding needs and other “international partners” are expected to fill the gap. Asked whether the UK would be one of the countries to contribute to Ukraine’s financing, the government spokesperson said: “In total, the UK has committed £21.8bn in support for Ukraine through military and fiscal assistance. ”Our support for Ukraine is iron-clad. We continue to work with G7 and EU partners to ensure Ukraine can defend itself.” The decision was taken under a special procedure involving 24 of the EU’s 27 member states, after Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia declined to add their support but agreed not to block the plan.

Son of Norway’s crown princess ‘does not remember’ taking videos of alleged sexual assault

Marius Borg Høiby, the son of Norway’s crown princess, has told a court he does not remember taking pictures and videos found on his phone that police say show him sexually assaulting a woman at a royal residence. Høiby, Mette-Marit’s son from a relationship before her marriage to Crown Prince Haakon, is on trial accused of 38 crimes, including four rapes and assaults. He has pleaded not guilty to the most serious offences, including the alleged rapes, and faces up to 16 years in prison if convicted. The trial comes at a moment of unprecedented pressure on the Norwegian royal family, with Mette-Marit also facing criticism over her links with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Taking the stand at Oslo district court on Wednesday, Høiby gave his account of an afterparty in 2018 during which he is accused of groping a woman while she was unconscious. Høiby, 29, said he could see that the woman, whose identity is being concealed under court orders, appeared to be sleeping in the videos, but he denied any charges of rape. In Norway, rape can be defined as occurring with or without intercourse. The party had taken place in the basement of Skaugum, the official residence of the crown prince and princess, while they were upstairs, he said. On Tuesday, the court was shown four films and 10 pictures apparently taken between 7:12am and 7:17am one morning in December 2018. The prosecution believes the rape without intercourse took place during this time. When on Wednesday the judge asked Høiby about the videos and photos found on his phone, Høiby said: “I don’t even remember taking them.” He told the three judges that he and the woman did have consensual sex, but not while she was asleep. She must have been awake, he said, because “I don’t sleep with women who are not awake.” Within minutes of taking the witness stand, Høiby broke down in tears after saying he found it “incredibly difficult to speak in front of so many people”. The press, he said, had “harassed and tormented” him since he was three years old. He said he had lived a life that “very few here can relate to”, in which there had been a lot of partying and drinking. “I am known for being my mother’s son. Nothing else. I have had an extreme need for validation,” he told the court. “And that manifested itself in a lot of sex, a lot of drugs, and a lot of alcohol.” His testimony came after that of the alleged victim from the party. She told the court she remembered briefly having sex with Høiby earlier in the evening before she stopped it, but had had no recollection of the alleged rape until she was contacted by police who showed her the footage. She told the court that in the footage she had been “completely unconscious” and that learning of it felt like “a betrayal and a shock”. She said she had never seen herself like that and had never experienced that kind of memory loss. She said she believed she had been drugged. Breaking down in tears, she said she did not want to be a victim, adding: “Unfortunately, I have been, thanks to Marius Borg Høiby.” Høiby said he believed that alcohol and drugs were consumed at the party, but that: “Before this came up, this is not an evening that has lingered so much in my mind.” Asked whether he remembers taking any pictures, he said: “I don’t remember taking them myself, but we had sex completely awake and voluntarily. I don’t remember much of that sex either.” He said he stored sexual photos and videos in a separate app on his phone because “I don’t want to scroll past a lot of nude photos”. He added: “It’s never been for anyone else but me anyway.”

Murdered son of Muammar Gaddafi was perceived as a threat to Libya’s elite

The assassination of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the second son of Libya’s late dictator Muammar Gaddafi, is a reminder of both how violent Libya remains more than 15 years after his father’s demise – and how much Saif had come to be perceived as a threat to Libya’s governing elite. The loyalist Gaddafi green movement remained a potent gathering point for some Libyans nostalgic for a return to imagined past security that Saif’s father symbolised. Gaddafi, 53, was shot dead by unidentified gunmen who stormed his house in Zintan on Tuesday. His political office quickly demanded an impartial inquiry into his death, casting doubt on the ability of the UN-backed government based in Tripoli to mount such an investigation. The Tripoli-based prime minister, Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh, holds on to power even though a UN-led process in 2021 had only intended to install him as an interim leader pending new elections that never happened. As a result, Libya remains divided between an authoritarian east led by the family of the warlord Khalifa Haftar and the UN-recognised west that is trying to demonstrate that the country has shed its violent past. But Saif Gaddafi’s difficulty was that he did not fit neatly into this picture of a country divided in two – and as such represented a threat to many. One Libyan said: “There is a large constituency inside Libya that has come to support what he symbolises, and if there were elections it was likely that he would do better than Dbeibeh and Haftar, especially since there is a nostalgia for the past that is remembered as more secure. Since there have been no national elections in Libya since 2015 there is a large group of voters that have no personal experience of Gaddafi’s father or what he did.” The conspiracy theories swirling around Saif’s death are made all the more intriguing by recent reports that the rival camps had met in Paris last week to discuss a common approach to elections. The two sides were brought together by Donald Trump’s adviser on Arab and African affairs, Massad Boulos. Any national unity deal between the two sides would have faced the obstacle of Gaddafi’s apparent determination to stand as a third force. Already his supporters are lauding him as a martyr. But his death also marks another step back for international justice. Elham Saudi, the director of the London-based group Libyan Lawyers for Justice, said: “Saif Gaddafi is the last person who had an outstanding arrest warrant at the international criminal court for violations in 2011, and for that avenue to justice to be closed off now would be very regrettable, especially since this is the 15th anniversary of the uprising. It would be a sad day for victims if that file is now closed with his death.” More sophisticated and western-oriented than his father, Saif was often seen as the slick interlocutor with western powers as they negotiated Libya’s abandonment of weapons of mass destruction or compensation for the families of those killed in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie in Scotland. Educated in the west, his modern image managed for a period to beguile London academia – including the London School of Economics, which in 2008 granted him a PhD soon after Libya promised the institution £1.5m of funding over five years. But once the Libyan civil war erupted in 2011 Saif was unambiguously by his father’s bloody side and was captured by Islamist revolutionary forces as he sought to flee for Niger. The militia that captured him – the Abu Bakr al-Siddiq battalion – for six years ignored the ICC warrant, and released him in 2017 as part of a general amnesty. Slowly he entered a third phase in his political career, acting as a populist alternative to the corrupt elites in both the east and west. In 2021, he attempted to run for president, appearing in the southern city of Sabha in tribal dress to deliver his nomination papers. His message, as relayed in a rare interview given to the New York Times, had a resonance. “There’s no money, no security. There’s no life here. Go to the gas station – there’s no diesel. We export oil and gas to Italy – we’re lighting half of Italy – and we have blackouts here. It’s more than a failure. It’s a fiasco.” His candidacy was blocked and the whole election process stalled amid arguments between all sides about the qualifications required to run for the presidency. Yet Saif Gaddafi paradoxically benefited from being silenced. Untainted by being in government, and the endless corruption, he retained a mysterious allure. In recordings smuggled out more recently he questioned why “martyrs” had sacrificed themselves in 2011 only to find they were being ruled by foreign ambassadors from Turkey, Britain, the US and France or by UN special envoys such as the American Stephanie T Williams. Now no one will know whether he could have won a presidential election. But the story of how his death is investigated, the culprits identified and his life memorialised still has the potential to influence the future of Libya. Fifteen years after the death of Muammar Gaddafi, the dictator’s shadow still looms large over the country.

Why the Chagos Islands’ ecology will not be wrecked by return to Mauritius | Letters

There has long been a lobby against returning the Chagos Islands to Mauritius based on tenuous environmental arguments, and Clive Hambler’s letter (28 January) is an example. While the marine ecosystems of the Chagos are relatively pristine, the terrestrial environments are not, as the islands were used as major coconut plantations for a couple of centuries before being forcibly depopulated in the 1970s. Aside from Diego Garcia, they have been effectively rewilded through neglect, so the vegetation is secondary forest, good but not “virgin”, and does support important seabird colonies. As for the marine environment, the now-displaced islanders fished the waters during those 200 years, also exporting some fish to Mauritius. As I understand it, the Mauritian plan is to retain much of the current marine conservation zone for limited “artisanal” fishing only – the wider seas have been plundered by large-scale international fishing operations for decades, and in the 19th century for the industrial harvesting of sperm whales. From their first settlement in the late 1700s, the islands were administered from Mauritius until detached as the British Indian Ocean Territory on Mauritius becoming independent in 1968. The displaced inhabitants, employees of the monopolist Chagos Agalega Company, were Mauritian and Seychellois citizens. The islands’ return to Mauritius is thus both legally and morally correct. There is no evidence that it will cause the “irreversible destruction” that Hambler claims. Anthony Cheke Co-author, Lost Land of the Dodo: The Ecological History of Mauritius, Réunion & Rodrigues • Clive Hambler notes that the Chagos Islands is the best protected tropical ecosystem on Earth and that Mauritius’s plans for fishing after regaining sovereignty threaten this. We need to recognise the reasons why the Chagos Islands are a “last great tropical wilderness” area. The UK exiled thousands of British subjects in the 1960s and 1970s from the Chagos Islands to make way for an American military base. Declassified archival documents show that various legal mechanisms were used, including claiming that the Chagos Islanders were merely Mauritian “contract labourers”, to “clear” the islands to make way for the American inhabitation of the archipelago. The UK imposed environmental protections more recently to counter Chagossians’ claims to their homeland, not out of concern for the environment. We must be careful not to repeat this logic by equating Mauritian sovereignty and the Chagossians’ return home with the notion that the islands’ biodiversity will be undercut. To do so is to repeat the narrative used by the UK to exile its own citizens decades ago. Dr Tom Frost Senior lecturer, Loughborough Law School • Chagos is not “pristine” – it has been ravaged by widespread bleaching and coral death. Its remarkable ecosystem is due to its geography and controversial history. It is remote, with nearly 200 years of low-impact plantations, banishment of about 1,500 Chagossians in the 1970s by Britain, a licensed tuna and inshore fishery for over 20 years, and 15 years as a no-take marine protected area (MPA). The licensed fishery was well regulated, with no evidence that fish stocks were depleted, nor that a no-take regime was needed. In 2015, the MPA was found to be in breach of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and is no longer recognised by world authorities. No longer legitimate, in due course it would become unenforceable. The future no longer lies in failed fortress conservation but in the Mauritius MPA, announced in 2022, which will permit Chagossians to return to their homeland while protecting the islands and seas from exploitation. Where fishing will be permitted, there is to be “an agreed sustainable quota for artisanal, traditional, ceremonial and subsistence purposes”. No commercial fishing will be allowed. Under the treaty, the UK has agreed to provide assistance to Mauritius. Richard Dunne Lead author, The Creation of the Chagos Marine Protected Area: A Fisheries Perspective (Advances in Marine Biology volume 69, 2014)

The link between population growth and biodiversity loss | Letters

George Monbiot’s article (The UK government didn’t want you to see this report on ecosystem collapse. I’m not surprised, 27 January) highlights the grave risks identified in the UK government’s report Global biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and national security. However, it overlooks a key factor highlighted in the report – that population growth is a major indirect driver of global biodiversity loss. “As the global population grows, reaching 9.7 billion by 2050, the impact of food production on natural systems will intensify and it will become even more challenging to produce sufficient food sustainably,” it says. Mass-scale expansion of agriculture driven by global population growth risks sacrificing sustainability: forests cleared for farmland, pesticides polluting waterways, and ecosystems pushed beyond recovery accelerating biodiversity loss. It is a concern echoed by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which identified population growth and GDP per capita as the strongest drivers of carbon emissions. We must end the taboo of discussing population growth and address the underlying causes of it. Currently, there are 121m unintended pregnancies each year, and globally only one in 10 women feel able to make decisions about using contraception. By addressing the drivers of global population growth, we also curb rising demand for food production, resolving one of the main drivers of biodiversity loss. In addition, more people transitioning to a plant-based diet is essential, as livestock farming occupies more than three-quarters of agricultural land and produces twice the emissions of crop farming. The UK government must urgently act on its own report’s findings by addressing the causes and effects of global population growth and unsustainable consumption patterns as intertwined challenges. Biodiversity loss cannot be ignored, as it poses an existential risk to geopolitical security and any hope for a peaceful and sustainable future. Amy Jankiewicz CEO, Population Matters

Gunmen kill more than 160 people in attacks on two west Nigeria villages

More than 160 people have been killed in two villages in western Nigeria in the country’s deadliest armed assaults this year, as communities reel from repeated and widespread acts of violence perpetrated by jihadists and other armed groups. The death toll from Tuesday’s attacks in Woro and Nuku in Kwara state stood at 162 on Wednesday afternoon, according to Mohammed Omar Bio, a member of parliament representing the area. He told the Associated Press that the Lakurawa, an armed group affiliated with Islamic State, had carried out the attacks. No one has claimed responsibility. Sa’idu Baba Ahmed, a politician in the Kaiama region, said gunmen had rounded up residents, bound their hands behind their backs and killed them. The attackers also torched homes and shops. “As I’m speaking to you now, I’m in the village along with military personnel, sorting dead bodies and combing the surrounding areas for more,” he told Reuters. He said many people had fled into surrounding bushland with gunshot wounds and that the whereabouts of several people, including the village’s traditional king, were unknown. Residents told Reuters the gunmen were jihadists who often preached in the village and that they demanded that locals ditch their allegiance to the Nigerian state and switch to sharia law. When the villagers pushed back, the militants opened fire during Tuesday’s sermon, they said. The Kwara state governor, AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, condemned the attack as “a cowardly expression of frustration by terrorist cells following the ongoing counter-terrorism campaigns in parts of the state”. Kwara borders Niger state, which is targeted increasingly by armed groups. The military recently carried out operations in the area against what it called “terrorist elements”. Nigeria is in the grip of interlinked security crises, including a jihadist insurgency in the north-east and north-west, a surge in looting and kidnapping for ransom by armed groups known as “bandits” in the north-west and north-central regions, and intercommunal violence in central states. At least two groups operating in the country are affiliated with IS: an offshoot of the Boko Haram extremist group known as Islamic State West Africa Province in the north-east, and the lesser-known Islamic State Sahel Province, known locally as the Lakurawa, which is prominent in the north-west. The military has said in the past that the Lakurawa has its roots in neighbouring Niger and that it became more active in Nigeria’s border communities since a 2023 military coup. In a separate attack on Tuesday, gunmen killed at least 13 people in Doma village in the Faskari area in Katsina state in the north-west, police said on Wednesday. Last week, armed extremists in the north-east killed at least 36 people during separate attacks on a construction site and on an army base. Tuesday’s attack in Katsina state happened despite a series of peace deals brokered between armed groups of motorcycle-riding bandits and villagers in the 11 local government councils most affected by the violence in the state. The deals were negotiated by community elders and traditional rulers and reportedly backed by local authorities. Faskari, a predominantly farming and animal husbandry area, was one of those councils. The Nigerian military has intensified operations against jihadists and armed bandits and regularly claims to have killed huge numbers of fighters. The military said last month that it had launched “sustained coordinated offensive operations against terrorist elements” in Kwara state and achieved notable successes. Local media reported that the army had “neutralised” or killed 150 people. In a statement on 30 January the army said that troops had also “stormed remote camps hitherto inaccessible to security forces where several abandoned camps and logistics enablers were destroyed, significantly degrading the terrorists’ sustainment capability”. In response to the myriad insecurity woes, local authorities in Kwara state imposed curfews in certain areas and had closed schools for several weeks before ordering them to reopen on Monday. Insecurity in Africa’s most populous country has been under intense scrutiny in recent months since the US president, Donald Trump, alleged a “genocide” of Christians in Nigeria. The claim has been rejected by the Nigerian government and many independent experts, who say the country’s security crises claim the lives of Christians and Muslims, often without distinction. On Tuesday, Gen Dagvin Anderson, head of the US Africa Command, said the US had deployed a small military team to Nigeria, where Trump’s administration has alternately put pressure on and aided the government as it fights jihadist violence. Anderson said at a virtual news conference that the two countries had agreed to “increase collaboration”. Despite these efforts, many in the north and south of the country claim the authorities are not doing enough to combat the violence and are instead focused on politics. Hours before the Doma massacre unfolded, thousands of supporters of the ruling All Progressives Congress party travelled on roads where raids have happened in recent years to Katsina’s state capital, where they participated in a rally endorsing its governor for next year’s general elections. Agence France-Presse, the Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report