US Launches Airstrikes on Islamic State in Nigeria to Protect “Innocent Christians”
The Trump administration has launched airstrikes on Islamic State in north-west Nigeria in coordination with Nigerian authorities, killing multiple militants. While Nigeria insists the strikes had “nothing to do with a particular religion”, President Trump railed against “Isis terrorist scum… who have been targeting… innocent Christians”. The Times has the story.
The US has launched airstrikes on Nigeria, President Trump has said, hitting targets linked to the Islamic State who he claimed were responsible for “viciously killing … innocent Christians”.
Announcing the strikes on the evening of Christmas Day, Trump said on Truth Social: “Tonight, at my direction as commander in chief, the United States launched a powerful and deadly strike against Isis terrorist scum in north-west Nigeria, who have been targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians, at levels not seen for many years, and even centuries!”
The president added that only the American military was capable of executing the “numerous perfect strikes”.
The US military’s Africa Command said the strike was carried out in Sokoto state in co-ordination with Nigerian authorities and killed multiple Isis militants.
Nigeria’s foreign minister, Yusuf Maitama Tuggar, said the strike was a “joint operation” targeting “terrorists”, and it “has nothing to do with a particular religion”.
Without naming Isis specifically, Tuggar said the operation had been planned “for quite some time” and had used intelligence information provided by the Nigerians. He did not rule out further strikes, adding that this depended on “decisions to be taken by the leadership of the two countries”.
More than a dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired from a naval ship in the Gulf of Guinea, hitting insurgents in two Isis camps in the northwestern state of Sokoto, according to The New York Times.
Pete Hegseth, the secretary of war, said on X that there would be “more to come”, while Nigeria’s foreign ministry said the attacks were carried out as part of ongoing security co-operation with the US.
A video posted by the Pentagon showed at least one projectile launched from a warship. A US defence official said the strike targeted multiple militants at known Isis camps.
The strike comes after Trump in late October threatened to send his military intervention in to Nigeria “guns a-blazing” over what he said was a failure to stop violence targeting Christian communities.
Worth reading in full.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Fantastic news!
What are those who should be interested in protecting Christians eg. the Pope, Archbishop of Canterbury, going to say.
You think the purpose of organised religion is to protect people?
Don’t worry, I take your point 😉
If nothing else it will draw the world’s attention to those terrible aggressions which to date has been conspicuously lacking.
Islam has always been spread by the sword. Well done Trump for hitting back.
I’m reminded of the line in Crocodile Dundee “That’s not a knife? This is a knife.”
Well done Donald, the only man with balls enough to do something about radical islamic murderers.
Actually I’m greatly troubled by these developments. For many years we’ve followed the dreadful accounts of murders, abductions, forced marriages and rapes committed by Boko Haram (and similar groups) alongside the militarised Fulani nomadic people (that historically introduced Islam to the Sahel zone). Despite what the BBC and other mainstream media outlets say, such attacks have deliberately targeted Christians for murder, in particular Christian leaders and Christian fathers, many times more than the number of Muslims attacked, in contrast to what those sources would have us believe. The Christians have not returned violence. Many of those who survived attacks fled their lands, living hand to mouth in internally displaced person camps. They have sought aid and assistance from local, regional and national authorities – receiving little support. They have become the example of the third aspect of overcoming in Revelation 12:11 – the bit seldom quoted by most Christians in the West: theirs is the true Christian response – the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. (Which, of course, is easy for me to say). While I would support the Nigerian government taking stronger measures to find and recover the captives and to disarm the Muslim… Read more »