The U.S. strikes against the Islamic State in northwestern Nigeria followed President Trump’s threat earlier this year to take military action if Nigeria’s government did not stop the killing of Christians by Islamist militants.
Mr. Trump did not specify which attacks he was referring to, nor did he cite evidence for the claim, made by several of his political allies, that Christians are being targeted in Nigeria.
What did the U.S. Attack?
Mr. Trump announced the strikes on Truth Social but provided few details. He said only that “the United States launched a powerful and deadly strike against ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria,” accusing the group of “targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians.”
The Defense Department said it worked with the Nigerian government to carry out the strikes.
What did Trump threaten to do?
On Nov. 1, Mr. Trump said that if Nigeria’s government continued to “allow the killing of Christians, the USA will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing.’”
“I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action,” he wrote. “If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth responded to the president’s post by writing, “Yes sir,” adding that the Pentagon was “preparing for action.”
A day earlier, the Trump administration said it would reinstate Nigeria as a “country of particular concern,” a designation that the U.S. government applies to nations deemed to have “engaged in severe violations of religious freedom.” Mr. Trump took a similar step in 2020, near the end of his first term, which was reversed during the Biden administration.
Mr. Trump’s threat of military intervention was a substantial escalation. When asked last month about specifics of his plan, he replied: “I envisage a lot of things. They’re killing the Christians and killing them in very large numbers. We’re not going to allow that to happen.”
In the days leading up to Mr. Trump’s threats, several of his political allies made similar accusations. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas accused Nigeria of “facilitating the mass murder” of Christians.
Nigeria’s response
Nigeria has denied the accusations. Its president, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, said on Saturday that the country remained committed to protecting religious freedom.
“Nigeria stands firmly as a democracy governed by constitutional guarantees of religious liberty,” Mr. Tinubu wrote on social media.
The characterization of Nigeria “as religiously intolerant does not reflect our national reality,” he added in a statement, citing what he described as sustained efforts by the government to safeguard freedom of religion and belief for all Nigerians.
Violence in Nigeria
Nigeria, home to around 220 million people, has large populations of Christians and Muslims.
Parts of the country have long suffered violence from extremist groups, including Boko Haram, an Islamist terror group based in northeastern Nigeria that has attacked both Christians and Muslims it does not consider faithful enough. A splinter group, the Islamic State West Africa Province, has carried out similar attacks.
In a 2024 report, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom said extremist violence in Nigeria “affects large numbers of Christians and Muslims in several states.”
Deadly clashes have also repeatedly occurred in central Nigeria between herders and farmers, as a battle for scarce resources stirs long-held tensions over religion and ethnicity. The herders are typically ethnic Fulani and Muslim, while the farmers are often Christian. Some conflicts are simply about armed men seizing land. And Northwest Nigeria has a significant kidnap-for-ransom industry.
Pranav Baskar, Helene Cooper and Ruth Maclean contributed reporting.
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