Nigerian Air Force combat record

Nijerya Hava Kuvvetlerinin katıldığı her savaş

Nigerian air strikes have repeatedly killed civilians, from the bombing of Biafran markets, schools and hospitals to the camp for displaced people at Rann in January 2017, where MSF counted about 90 dead and the ISS later cited 112; each toll is given with the source that reports it, and insurgent fighters killed are the air force’s own claims and are not repeated. The December 2023 strike at Tudun Biri was by a Nigerian Army drone, not the air force. In Benin in December 2025, Wikipedia’s summary of media reports says President Talon asked for Nigeria’s help, and Benin’s government said its own forces had foiled the coup. Where a consolidated sortie or loss figure exists in the official record it is given here; where accounts disagree, the range is shown and the disagreement named. Blank cells are blank because no figure could be verified, not because the fighting was small.

From the Biafran war of 1967 to the strikes on coup plotters in Benin in December 2025.

Anlaşmazlık Yıllar Aykırı Ana uçak Çıkışlar Uçak kayboldu
Nijerya İç Savaşıthe Biafran warNijerya Hava Kuvvetleri 1967–1970 Biafra MiG-17, MiG-15UTI, Il-28ve 1 tane daha

Bombed and strafed Biafran forces and towns, attacked the Uli airstrip and the relief airlift, and supported the federal ground offensives.

Nigeria had no combat aircraft when the war began on 6 July 1967. After Biafran raids, Soviet MiG-17s reached Kano via Egypt from 13 August 1967, with Il-28 bombers based at Calabar and Port Harcourt. Wikipedia says about 200 Soviet technicians came with the MiGs and that Egyptian pilots flew them. Bombing of Biafran markets, schools and hospitals was widely reported abroad and, in Wikipedia’s summary, helped win Biafra international sympathy. By spring 1969 European contract pilots had replaced the Egyptians. Biafra fought back with a small mercenary-flown force of B-25s, B-26s and Swedish MFI-9B light aircraft led by Carl Gustaf von Rosen and others, and depended on a night airlift into Uli that Nigerian aircraft attacked.

Sonuç Federal victory; Biafra surrendered on 15 January 1970.

The number of MiG-17s (8 to 17) and the identity of foreign pilots rest on secondary sources cited by Wikipedia; casualty figures from the bombing of civilians are not given here because no reliable count was found.

Uçmak için
Nijerya Hava Kuvvetleri
Nerede
South-eastern Nigeria (Biafra)
Yanında
Soviet Union (aircraft and technicians) and Egypt (pilots)
Aykırı
Biafra
Uçak
MiG-17, MiG-15UTI, Il-28, L-29 Delfín
Kayıplar
Nigerian air losses not documented in the sources checked. Wikipedia’s airlift article counts at least 29 relief aircrew killed in ten incidents, including the Red Cross DC-7 shot down on 5 June 1969.
Kaynaklar
Vikipedi · Vikipedi · Vikipedi · Vikipedi · Nijerya Hava Kuvvetleri
Liberya'daki ECOMOGthe First Liberian Civil WarNijerya Hava Kuvvetleri 1990–1998 National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) Alfa Jet, C-130H 0

Close air support, interdiction and anti-shipping strikes against Charles Taylor’s NPFL for the ECOWAS force; airlift.

Nigeria provided about 7,000 of ECOMOG’s 11,000 troops and more than 70 per cent of its cost. Four Alpha Jets deployed in 1990 and hit Charles Taylor’s headquarters, convoys, shipping and gun positions at the airport; the New York Times judged that they gave ECOMOG a decisive firepower advantage, as quoted by Wikipedia. In 1992 six aircraft under ECOMOG command flew about 3,000 missions, including bridge denial and night raids.

Sonuç ECOMOG completed its withdrawal from Liberia by the end of 1998.

Sortie figures come from Wikipedia’s Alpha Jet article and were not checked against a primary source.

Uçmak için
Nijerya Hava Kuvvetleri
Nerede
Liberya
Yanında
ECOWAS (ECOMOG)
Aykırı
National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL)
Uçak
Alfa Jet, C-130H
Çıkışlar
About 3,000 combat missions by six Alpha Jets in 1992, per Wikipedia.
Kayıplar
0 uçakNo Alpha Jets lost, though some were damaged by ground fire (Wikipedia).
Kaynaklar
Vikipedi · Vikipedi · Nijerya Hava Kuvvetleri
Sierra Leone'de ECOMOGthe Sierra Leone Civil WarNijerya Hava Kuvvetleri 1997–2000 Armed Forces Revolutionary Council and Revolutionary United Front (RUF) Alfa Jet

Air strikes for the Nigerian-led ECOMOG force against the AFRC junta and the RUF, including the defence of Freetown in January 1999.

ECOMOG deployed to Sierra Leone in 1997. In 1998 ECOMOG aircraft forced down a helicopter carrying the former junta leader Johnny Paul Koroma, per Wikipedia. Human Rights Watch’s July 1999 report records that during the rebel attack on Freetown in January 1999 ECOMOG jets bombed a column of civilians whom rebels were using as human shields, and that ECOMOG’s commander said troops had been told to “kill everything” if human shields were used again.

Sonuç Not detailed in the sources checked.

End year approximate and not confirmed in the sources checked. HRW does not name the aircraft type; the Alpha Jet attribution follows the air force’s known deployment. Casualties of the Freetown bombing are not given by HRW in the passage checked.

Uçmak için
Nijerya Hava Kuvvetleri
Nerede
Sierra Leone
Yanında
ECOWAS (ECOMOG) and Government of Sierra Leone
Aykırı
Armed Forces Revolutionary Council and Revolutionary United Front (RUF)
Uçak
Alfa Jet
Kayıplar
İncelenen kaynaklarda belgelenmemiştir.
Kaynaklar
İnsan Hakları İzleme Örgütü · Vikipedi · Nijerya Hava Kuvvetleri
Kuzeydoğuda isyanla mücadeleBoko Haram and ISWAP; Operation Hadin KaiNijerya Hava Kuvvetleri 2013– Boko Haram (JAS) and Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) Alfa Jet, F-7NI, A-29 Super Tucanove 7 tane daha

Air strikes, close air support, surveillance and airlift against Boko Haram (JAS) and Islamic State West Africa Province.

Air power became central after 2013, and the authors of a 2025 study in The Conversation credit it with locating and destroying many insurgent camps. It also produced the service’s worst mistake. On 17 January 2017 an air force aircraft bombed the camp for displaced people at Rann, Borno, during an aid distribution: MSF counted about 90 dead and said the toll might reach 170; the ISS later cited 112 killed and 97 injured. The military’s inquiry blamed the lack of markings on the camp. The ISS also lists 17 killed at Sakotoku, Damboa, on 13 April 2020. The air force now says civilian harm mitigation is embedded in its doctrine.

Sonuç Devam ediyor.

Insurgent fighters killed are the air force’s own claims and are not repeated here. Civilian tolls differ by source and are attributed.

Uçmak için
Nijerya Hava Kuvvetleri
Nerede
Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states; Lake Chad basin
Yanında
Multinational Joint Task Force (Cameroon, Chad, Niger, Benin)
Aykırı
Boko Haram (JAS) and Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP)
Uçak
Alfa Jet, F-7NI, A-29 Super Tucano, JF-17, Mi-35, T129, CH-3/CH-4, Wing Loong II, DA62, King Air
Çıkışlar
Over 8,500 A-29 operational hours by August 2024 (NAF figure via defenceWeb).
Kayıplar
Several losses: an Alpha Jet in September 2014 and a disputed one in March 2021 (Wikipedia), an F-7NI near Yola on 10 October 2015, an Mi-171 in August 2023 (defenceWeb). No complete count published.
Kaynaklar
The Conversation via defenceWeb · defenceWeb (Reuters) · defenceWeb (Reuters) · ISS Africa via defenceWeb · defenceWeb · Vikipedi · defenceWeb · Nijerya Hava Kuvvetleri
Kuzeybatı ve kuzey-orta eyaletlerde silahlı çetelere karşı operasyonlarthe banditry crisisNijerya Hava Kuvvetleri 2021– Armed bandit groups and Lakurawa Alfa Jet, A-29 Super Tucano, Mi-35ve 1 tane daha 1

Air strikes and surveillance against armed criminal gangs (“bandits”) and, from 2024, the Lakurawa group.

Mistaken strikes have followed the air war west. ISS lists six children killed at Kurebe, Niger State, in April 2022 and a death at Kunkuna, Katsina, in July 2022, and 37 killed in Doma, Nasarawa, in January 2023. Wikipedia’s list, citing media and SBM Intelligence, adds more than 60 at Daban Masara in 2021, 64 at Mutumji in December 2022, more than ten in Sokoto in December 2024 and 16 in Zamfara in January 2025, and SBM’s total of over 400 civilians killed in such incidents between 2017 and 2025. The December 2023 strike at Tudun Biri, Kaduna, which ISS reports caused 120 casualties, was by a Nigerian Army drone, not the air force.

Sonuç Devam ediyor.

Start year is that of the earliest incident in the sources checked; operations began earlier. Several incident figures come from Wikipedia’s summary of media reports and were not checked against the original reports; the air force has not published its own tally.

Uçmak için
Nijerya Hava Kuvvetleri
Nerede
Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna, Niger, Sokoto and neighbouring states
Yanında
Müttefik hava kuvvetleri yok.
Aykırı
Armed bandit groups and Lakurawa
Uçak
Alfa Jet, A-29 Super Tucano, Mi-35, armed drones
Kayıplar
1 uçak · 0 ölüAn Alpha Jet was shot down on the Zamfara–Kaduna border on 18 July 2021; the pilot, Abayomi Dairo, ejected and evaded capture (NAF statement via Reuters).
Kaynaklar
defenceWeb (Reuters) · ISS Africa via defenceWeb · Vikipedi
ECOWAS intervention in the GambiaECOMIGNijerya Hava Kuvvetleri 2017 Forces loyal to Yahya Jammeh 0

Air support for the ECOWAS force that entered the Gambia to install President Adama Barrow.

ECOWAS forces entered the Gambia on 19 January 2017 at the request of Adama Barrow, sworn in that day at the Gambian embassy in Dakar. Nigeria contributed air and sea support. Jammeh left two days later without a fight in the capital. defenceWeb’s 2025 profile lists about 200 Nigerian personnel still with ECOMIG.

Sonuç Jammeh left the country on 21 January 2017; Barrow returned on 26 January.

Uçmak için
Nijerya Hava Kuvvetleri
Nerede
The Gambia
Yanında
Senegal, Ghana and ECOWAS
Aykırı
Forces loyal to Yahya Jammeh
Kayıplar
0 uçakNo air losses reported.
Kaynaklar
Vikipedi · defenceWeb
Intervention against the Benin coup attempt7 December 2025Nijerya Hava Kuvvetleri 2025 Military Committee for Refoundation (coup plotters) A-29 Süper Tucano 0

Air strikes and armed patrols over Cotonou against the soldiers who had announced President Patrice Talon’s removal.

On 7 December 2025 soldiers calling themselves the Military Committee for Refoundation announced on state television that President Talon had been removed. President Tinubu ordered Nigerian fighter jets to “take over the airspace to help dislodge the coup plotters from the National TV and a military camp”, and defenceWeb reported that Nigerian Air Force aircraft carried out strikes in Benin that day. Tinubu said the forces “acted within the ambit of the ECOWAS Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance”. Benin’s government said its own forces had foiled the attempt. ECOWAS then deployed troops from Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana.

Sonuç The coup attempt failed; Benin reported 14 arrests.

Uçmak için
Nijerya Hava Kuvvetleri
Nerede
Cotonou, Benin
Yanında
Government of Benin and ECOWAS
Aykırı
Military Committee for Refoundation (coup plotters)
Uçak
A-29 Süper Tucano
Çıkışlar
Two A-29s patrolling for about five hours, per Wikipedia’s summary of media reports.
Kayıplar
0 uçak · 0 ölüBildirilen bir şey yok.
Kaynaklar
defenceWeb · Vikipedi

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Veriler 01.10.2026 tarihinde doğrulanmıştır. Back to the Nigerian Air Force.