USA assaults IS positions in Nigeria | EUROtoday

As of: December 26, 2025 10:30 a.m

The USA has carried out air strikes on positions belonging to the terrorist group “Islamic State” in Nigeria. Trump justified this with the Islamists’ actions towards Christians. Nigeria says the assaults had been a part of a safety cooperation.

According to President Donald Trump, the US navy carried out lethal assaults on fighters from the terrorist militia “Islamic State” (IS) in Nigeria this Christmas. “I warned these terrorists before that they would pay a heavy price if they didn’t stop the slaughter of Christians, and tonight they did,” Trump mentioned on his on-line service Truth Social. The navy strikes passed off within the northwest of the nation.

Trump threatened extra assaults on terrorists: “Merry Christmas to everyone, including the dead terrorists, of whom there will be many more if they continue to slaughter Christians,” he wrote.

Attacks in cooperation with Nigeria’s authorities

The U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Africa Command mentioned “several ISIS terrorists” had been killed in Sokoto state in an assault on the request of Nigerian authorities. An precise variety of deaths was not given. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth wrote on Platform X that the killing of harmless Christians in Nigeria and elsewhere should finish. He thanked the Nigerian authorities for its help and cooperation.

The Nigerian authorities additionally confirmed the assault. The Foreign Ministry mentioned “precision strikes on terrorist targets” had been carried out within the northwest as a part of ongoing safety cooperation with the United States. The intention of that is to “counter the ongoing threat of terrorism and violent extremism”. In a Christmas message, Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu known as for peace and promised to guard spiritual freedom and “protect Christians, Muslims and all Nigerians from violence.”

Trump threatened to take action weeks in the past navy strikes

These are the primary US assaults in Nigeria underneath the Trump administration. At the start of November, the US President had already threatened navy strikes within the West African nation. Even again then, he cited the rationale that Islamist terrorists had been killing Christians there. Trump had explicitly addressed the Nigerian authorities and warned that if it allowed additional bloodshed, the USA would instantly cease all assist and intervene there itself. At that point, Nigeria’s president emphasised that the nation rejected spiritual persecution. At that point, the USA categorized Nigeria as a rustic by which notably severe violations of non secular freedom occurred (Country of Particular Concern).

Conflicts, Islamists and legal gangs

Nigeria is rocked by quite a few conflicts between completely different ethnic and inhabitants teams, to which Christians and Muslims alike fall sufferer. Africa’s most populous nation is split right into a predominantly Muslim north and a largely Christian south. The northwest has been the scene of violence by the jihadist group Boko Haram, which rivals IS, for greater than 15 years. The violence killed 40,000 folks and displaced two million folks.

At the top of November there was a very excessive wave of mass kidnappings in northwest Nigeria. Hundreds of kids and quite a few academics had been kidnapped from a Catholic major and secondary college, the Christian Association of Nigeria mentioned on the time. Some of them had been launched shortly earlier than Christmas. Kidnappings have turn into commonplace within the north and middle of the nation: each legal gangs and Islamist terrorist teams repeatedly kidnap folks.