Nigerian villagers are rattled by US airstrikes that made their homes shake, sky glow red

JABO, Nigeria — Sanusi Madabo, a 40-year-old farmer in the Nigerian village of Jabo, was preparing for bed on 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 camp of the militant Islamic State group . U.S. President Donald Trump announced late Thursday that the United States had launched a “powerful and deadly strike” against IS militants in Nigeria. The Nigerian government has since confirmed that it cooperated with the U.S government in its strike. Nigerian government spokesperson Mohammed Idris said Friday that the strikes were launched from the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean shortly after midnight and involved “16 GPS-guided precision" missiles and also MQ-9 Reaper drones. Idris said the strikes targeted areas used as “staging grounds by foreign" IS fighters who had sneaked into Nigeria from the Sahel,