U.S. airstrikes rattle, confuse Nigerian villagers

Trump says 'powerful and deadly' attack targeted forces of the Islamic State group.

- BY OPE ADETAYO AND TUNDE OMOLEHIN

PEOPLE inspect the site of an explosion inside a mosque in Maiduguri, Nigeria.

(JOSSY OLA Associated Press)

Sanusi Madabo, a 40-year-old farmer in the Nigerian village of Jabo, was preparing for bed Thursday night when he heard a loud noise that sounded like a plane crashing.

He rushed outside his mud house with his wife to see the sky glowing a bright red.

The light burned bright for hours, Madabo said: "It was almost like daytime."

He did not learn until later that he had witnessed a U.S. attack on an alleged Islamic State camp.

President Trump announced late Thursday that the U.S. had launched a "powerful and deadly strike" against forces of the Islamic State group in Nigeria. The Nigerian government has since confirmed that it cooperated with the U.S. government in its strike.

Residents of Jabo, a village in the northwestern Nigerian state of Sokoto, told the Associated Press in interviews Friday that they were seized with panic and confusion at the airstrikes.

They also said the village had never been attacked by armed gangs as part of the violence the U.S. says is widespread, though such attacks regularly occur in neighboring villages.

"As it approached our area, the heat became intense," recalled Abubakar Sani, who lives just a few houses from the scene of the explosion.