{"id":21911,"date":"2026-01-03T06:50:28","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T04:50:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/nigeria-urges-civilians-to-avoid-debris-from-us-backed-strikes-on-islamists\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:32:51","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:32:51","slug":"nigeria-urges-civilians-to-avoid-debris-from-us-backed-strikes-on-islamists","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/nigeria-urges-civilians-to-avoid-debris-from-us-backed-strikes-on-islamists\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigeria urges civilians to avoid debris from US-backed strikes on Islamists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The alert follows online footage showing locals scavenging debris and unexploded ordnance at strike sites in Sokoto state, sparking fears of deadly blasts. US forces launched a rare strike deep inside Nigeria on December 25 at the request of Nigeria&#8217;s government, firing 16 GPS-guided munitions from MQ\u20119 Reaper drones at two Islamic State-linked camps in Sokoto.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We do not expect civilians to pick up or keep such materials,&#8221; Major General Michael Onoja, director of Defence Media Operations, told reporters on Friday. &#8220;We can only appeal to them to return all materials that may prove harmful to them.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Onoja said specialised ordnance units within the armed forces were tasked with recovering debris and other remnants from the strikes.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":21912,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-21911","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Nigeria's military urged civilians in the country's northwest on Friday not to keep or tamper with unexploded ordnance found at sites targeted in recent United States (US)-backed airstrikes.","published_date":null,"news_description":"Nigeria's military urged civilians in the country's northwest on Friday not to keep or tamper with unexploded ordnance found at sites targeted in recent United States (US)-backed airstrikes.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/21911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/21911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25396,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/21911\/revisions\/25396"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=21911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}