The strike was carried out using a Tomahawk cruise missile, a long-range, subsonic precision weapon designed to hit deep inland targets with high accuracy.
The missile carries a powerful high-explosive warhead and is capable of travelling well over 1,000 kilometres after launch from sea-based or air platforms.
To achieve precision, the Tomahawk relies on a sophisticated navigation system that combines GPS, inertial navigation, terrain contour matching, and digital scene correlation.
These systems allow the missile to fly at very low altitude, avoid detection, adjust its route mid-flight, and strike targets within a very small margin of error. Once launched, it approaches quietly and quickly, offering little or no warning to its target.
In this operation, the missile was reportedly launched from naval platforms positioned in the Gulf of Guinea. From there, it followed a direct inland flight path toward its intended target in the northwest.
That straight-line trajectory passes over parts of Kwara State.
What residents of Offa observed during the incident was not an attack on the town itself, but a technical phase of the missile’s flight known as staging. As long-range missiles travel, they shed excess components such as spent booster sections or fuel tanks once they are no longer needed.
This reduces weight and allows the missile’s main body to continue efficiently toward its target.
Offa happened to fall along the geographic point where this separation occurred. The falling objects seen were likely discarded missile components, not explosives, and they descended as part of the missile’s normal operational design.
According to a retired Air Force engineer, this type of staging is expected in long-range strikes and does not indicate a targeting error. The warhead itself continues onward after separation, guided independently to its designated destination.
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