US vows to launch more strikes on ISIS in Nigeria

U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to launch “many more” strikes on Islamic State terrorists in Nigeria if the “slaughter of Christians continues.”

Trump issued the threats after saying that he ordered “numerous” strikes, which he described as “powerful and deadly,” on ISIS targets in the West African nation on Christmas with the cooperation of the Nigerian authorities.

U.S. officers started ramping up rhetoric about anti-Christian violence in Nigeria back in October, when it added the nation back onto a checklist of nations the U.S. alleges have violated non secular freedoms. Earlier in the week, Nigeria was also added to the U.S. journey ban checklist, which partially restricts Nigerian nationals from getting into the nation after establishing a joint U.S.-Nigerian job power to tackle security issues following a go to by Rep. Riley Moore (R-W. Va.) to the 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!” Trump wrote on Truth Social Thursday.

“MERRY CHRISTMAS to all, including the dead Terrorists, of which there will be many more if their slaughter of Christians continues,” he added.

The Pentagon posted video footage of one strike, the precise location of which stays unclear.

Nigeria is the most populous nation on the continent of Africa, boasting 240 million residents of Christian, Muslim and other faiths, as properly as one of Africa’s largest economies.

Analysts word the latest joint effort displays a shift from Trump’s earlier criticism of the Nigerian authorities. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth thanked the Nigerian authorities for its “support and cooperation,” while doubling down on Trump’s threats to goal any perpetrators of violence against Christians.

However, Nigerian Foreign Minister Yusuf Maitama Tuggar clarified to the BBC that the strikes had been a “joint operation” focusing on “terrorists” that “has nothing to do with a particular religion.”

“I stand committed to doing everything within my power to enshrine religious freedom in Nigeria and to protect Christians, Muslims, and all Nigerians from violence,” Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu wrote on X on Christmas Eve.

In November, Tinbu wrote on X that Trump’s “characterisation of Nigeria as religiously intolerant does not reflect our national reality,” while making clear the federal government “opposes non secular persecution and doesn’t encourage it.”

Experts as properly as Nigerian officers have cautioned that Trump’s characterization of ongoing conflicts in Nigeria doesn’t precisely mirror the scenario, as people of all faiths have been focused by Islamic extremists in the nation.

The Nigerian authorities has made a concerted effort to curb the violence by launching army operations and negotiations, though terror persists, with ransom kidnappings as a notably common prevalence there.

The strikes come a day after an explosion at a mosque in the northeast of Nigeria killed 5 and injured dozens, just days after the federal government was ready to end a months-long kidnapping disaster.

In late November, more than 300 college students and 12 staffers at a Catholic college had been kidnapped in what was described as one of the worst college kidnappings in the nation’s latest historical past.

Earlier in the week, the remaining 130 kidnapped Catholic college youngsters had been freed by the federal government and reunited with their households.

Kidnappings at faculties turned popularized after a horrific incident in 2014 when the ISIS-linked terror group, Boko Haram, kidnapped 276 ladies from Chibok.