The United States launched strikes on ISIS targets in Nigeria on Christmas Day, President Donald Trump said Thursday evening, after months of his Administration warning about attacks on Christians in the west African nation.
“The United States launched a powerful and deadly strike against ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria, who have been targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians, at levels not seen for many years, and even Centuries,” he wrote on Truth Social. “I have previously warned these Terrorists that if they did not stop the slaughtering of Christians, there would be hell to pay, and tonight, there was.”
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Read More: How to Actually Stop the Violence in Nigeria
More than a dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired from a Navy ship, according to The New York Times citing an unnamed military official, hitting two insurgent camps in the northwest Sokoto State of Nigeria. Soon after Trump’s post, the Defense Department published a nine second video that appeared to show missiles launching from the military vessel.
U.S. Africa Command said it had assessed that “multiple” ISIS targets were killed, but did not provide further details. “U.S. Africa Command is working with Nigerian and regional partners to increase counterterrorism cooperation efforts related to on-going violence and threats against innocent lives,” General Dagvin Anderson, commander of U.S. Africa Command, said in the statement.
“As it approached our area, the heat became intense,” Abubakar Sani, who lives near the scene of the strike, told the Associated Press. “Our rooms began to shake, and then fire broke out. The Nigerian government should take appropriate measures to protect us as citizens. We have never experienced anything like this before.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned on X that further U.S. military action in the region could follow. He also said that the United States was grateful for the “cooperation” and “support” of the Nigerian government, whose intelligence aided the U.S. strikes.
Nigeria’s Foreign Minister Yusuf Tuggar told local broadcaster ChannelsTV that Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke to him before the strike, and that President Bola Tinubu gave “the go-ahead.”
The attack follows weeks of escalating rhetoric from Trump, who has portrayed violence in Nigeria as driven by anti-Christian persecution. In early November, Trump told the Defense Department to prepare for action in Nigeria, saying that he would send troops “guns-a-blazing” if “the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians,” just days after he threatened possible sanctions and removal of aid to the nation of over 230 million people.
At the time, President Tinubu rejected any characterization of Nigeria as religiously intolerant, arguing that it “does not reflect our national reality, nor does it take into consideration the consistent and sincere efforts of the government to safeguard freedom of religion and beliefs for all Nigerians.”
Experts also point out that while Nigeria continues to face insurgencies from jihadist groups, such as Boko Haram and the Islamic State, the majority of the victims of these groups have been Muslim–despite Trump’s characterization of the strikes.
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