100 US troops landed in Bauchi. Nigeria asked for them -- but not freely.

The first 100 of an expected 200 US military personnel have arrived at Bauchi airfield. Their mandate is training, intelligence sharing, and technical support for Nigerian forces fighting Boko Haram, ISWAP, Lakurawa, and other armed groups. Non-combat. Advisory. Under full Nigerian command authority -- officially.

The context reframes everything. This deployment follows Trump's Christmas Day airstrikes in Sokoto, his genocide accusations against Nigeria, and Nigeria's designation as a Country of Particular Concern for religious persecution. Abuja had little diplomatic room. Push back harder and risk isolation from US security infrastructure at exactly the moment the north is under its worst violence in years. So Nigeria requested the deployment. Sovereignty claimed, sovereignty partially ceded.

Human Rights Watch has urged oversight mechanisms and strict enforcement of the Leahy Laws, which prohibit US military support to forces implicated in human rights violations. The Nigerian military's record in the same northern zones where US trainers will now operate is not clean.

The question worth sitting with: who is actually in command?