The United States launched a number of strikes against the Islamic State in northwestern Nigeria, President Trump announced on Thursday, the latest American military campaign against a nonstate adversary — in this case, Islamic jihadis who the president asserts have been slaughtering Christians.
Mr. Trump said in a post on Truth Social that “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!”
The strike involved more than a dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles fired off a Navy ship in the Gulf of Guinea, hitting insurgents in two ISIS camps in northwest Nigeria’s Sokoto State, according to a U.S. military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters. The operation was done in coordination with the Nigerian military, the official said.
In a statement, U.S. Africa Command said its initial assessment concluded that “multiple” ISIS terrorists were killed in the strike.
“U.S. Africa Command is working with our Nigerian and regional partners to increase counter terrorism cooperation efforts related to ongoing violence and threats against innocent lives,” Gen. Dagvin Anderson, the commander of U.S. Africa Command, said in a statement. “Our goal is to protect Americans and disrupt violent extremist organizations wherever they are.”
The attack occurred in a region along the border with Niger, where a branch of ISIS called the Islamic State-Sahel has been attacking both government forces and civilians, according to Caleb Weiss, a counterterrorism analyst and editor with FDD’s Long War Journal.
The U.S. operation inside Africa’s most populous nation followed months of growing allegations by Christian evangelical groups and senior Republicans that Christians were being targeted in widespread violence.
An insurgency there has gone on for more than a decade, killing thousands of Christians and Muslims across sectarian lines. The Nigerian authorities have rejected allegations of a Christian genocide, noting that the web of violent armed groups, with different motives and spread across the country, kills as many Muslims as Christians.
However, Nigerian officials have stepped up engagement with the U.S. in recent weeks, after Mr. Trump ordered the Defense Department in November to prepare to intervene militarily in Nigeria to protect Christians.
The Christmas Day attack came after the U.S. had been conducting intelligence-gathering surveillance flights over large parts of Nigeria since late November, according to the military official.
On Thursday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote in a post on social media, “The President was clear last month: the killing of innocent Christians in Nigeria (and elsewhere) must end.”
“The @DeptofWar is always ready, so ISIS found out tonight — on Christmas,” he added. “More to come…”
Kimiebi Ebienfa, the spokesman for Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said in a post that “the precision strikes on terrorist targets in Nigeria were carried out in coordination with the Nigerian government.”
“Terrorist violence in any form — whether directed at Christians, Muslims, or other communities — remains an affront to Nigeria’s values and to international peace and security,” he added.
The strikes in Nigeria mark the second time in a week that Mr. Trump has ordered American military retaliation against a branch of the Islamic State. Last week, the United States carried out dozens of airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria, fulfilling the president’s vow to avenge the deaths of two Army soldiers and a civilian interpreter killed in a terrorist attack there earlier in the month.
U.S. Africa Command, responding to Mr. Trump’s orders, in November drew up options for targeting insurgents in Nigeria and forwarded them to the Pentagon and the White House. The options included airstrikes on the few known compounds in northern Nigeria inhabited by militant groups, officials said.
But even as the plans were being drawn up, American military officials said it was doubtful they would have much long-term impact because of the entrenched nature of the conflict.
The violence in the northwest region, where the strikes occurred, is driven in large part by armed bandits and gangs kidnapping for ransom. The insurgency is concentrated in the northeast, where jihadist groups like the notorious Boko Haram and its now more powerful splinter, the Islamic State West Africa Province, an affiliate of the Islamic State group, have killed tens of thousands of civilians over the past decade.
Nigeria is not officially at war, but more people are killed there than in most war-torn countries. More than 12,000 people were killed by various violent groups this year alone, according to Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, a conflict monitoring group.
On Wednesday, a suspected suicide bomber detonated an explosive device during evening prayers in a mosque at a market in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, in the northeast of Nigeria. Nigerian government officials said five were killed and dozens injured, though local media said at least 12 people were buried on Thursday, citing residents.
Mr. Trump, in his Truth Social post, said that “under my leadership, our Country will not allow Radical Islamic Terrorism to prosper.” He added: “May God Bless our Military, and MERRY CHRISTMAS to all, including the dead Terrorists, of which there will be many more if their slaughter of Christians continues.”
Helene Cooper is a Pentagon correspondent for The Times. She was previously an editor, diplomatic correspondent and White House correspondent.
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