President Donald Trump said the US had launched a “powerful and deadly attack” against the Islamic State (IS) group in northwestern Nigeria.
The US leader called ISIS “terrorist scum” and accused the group of “targeting and brutally killing primarily innocent Christians.”
Trump said the US military had “executed numerous perfect attacks”, while the US Africa Command (Africom) later reported that Thursday’s attack was carried out in Sokoto state in coordination with Nigeria.
Nigerian Foreign Minister Yusuf Maitama Tuggar told the BBC it was a “joint operation” against “terrorists” and had “nothing to do with any particular religion.”
Without naming ISIS specifically, Tuggar said the operation had been planned “for some time” and used intelligence information from the Nigerian side.
The minister did not rule out further attacks, adding that it would depend on “decisions made by the leadership of both countries.”
In his post on Truth Social late Thursday, Trump said that “under my leadership, our country will not allow radical Islamic terrorism to thrive.”
In November, Trump ordered the US military to prepare for deployment in Nigeria to take action against militant Islamist groups.
He did not say at the time which killings he was referring to, but claims of genocide against Nigeria’s Christians have circulated in some right-wing US circles in recent months.
Meanwhile, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Thursday he was “grateful for the support and cooperation of the Nigerian government”.
“Merry Christmas!” he added, writing on X.
The US Department of Defense later released a short video that appeared to show a missile being fired from a military ship.
On Friday morning, Nigeria’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the country’s authorities “continue to engage in structured security cooperation with international partners, including the United States of America, to address the ongoing threat of terrorist and violent extremism.”
“This has resulted in precision strikes on terrorist targets in Nigeria through airstrikes in the northwest,” the statement said.
Groups that monitor violence say there is no evidence that more Christians than Muslims are killed in Nigeria, where there are roughly equal numbers of followers of both religions.
An adviser to Nigerian President Bola Tinubu told the BBC at the time that any military action against the jihadist groups should be carried out jointly.
Daniel Bwala said Nigeria would welcome U.S. help in fighting Islamist insurgents but stressed it was a “sovereign” country.
He also said that the jihadists did not target members of any particular religion and that they killed people of all or no faith.
President Tinubu has insisted there is religious tolerance in the country, saying security challenges affect people “across all faiths and regions”.
Trump previously said he had declared Nigeria a “country of particular concern” because of the “existential threat” to its Christian population. He said “thousands” had been killed without providing evidence.
This is a term used by the US State Department to impose sanctions on countries “that commit serious violations of religious freedom”.
Following the announcement, Tinubu said his government was committed to working with the US and the international community to protect people of all faiths.
Jihadist groups such as Boko Haram and the Islamic State of West Africa Province have wreaked havoc in northeastern Nigeria for more than a decade, killing thousands of people – but most of them were Muslim, according to Acled, a group that analyzes political violence around the world.
In central Nigeria, too, there are frequent clashes between predominantly Muslim shepherds and often Christian farming groups over access to water and grazing land.
Thousands have also been killed in deadly cycles of attacks that are all about the same thing – but atrocities have been committed on both sides.
Human rights groups say there is no evidence that Christians have been disproportionately targeted.
Last week, The US said it had carried out a “massive attack” against IS in Syria.
U.S. Central Command (Centcom) said warplanes, helicopter gunships and artillery “attacked more than 70 targets in multiple locations in central Syria.” Airplanes from Jordan were also involved.
