Olushola Omogbehin
In fulfilling the threat issued against terrorism in Nigeria by Donald Trump, the U.S. military had attacked Islamic State in Northeast Nigeria, claiming the group had been targeting Christians in the region.
Disclosing this on Truth Social, Trump said he directed the military to launch 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!”
In another post on X, the U.S. military’s Africa Command confirmed that the strike was carried out at the request of Nigerian authorities with yet to be known numbers of militants killed in the process.
According to what Nigerian Foreign Minister, Yusuf Maitama Tuggar told BBC, the attack was a joint operation between US and Nigeria, targeting terrorists. He emphasised that it has nothing to do with a particular religion.
Not mentioning IS in particular, Tuggar said the operation had been planned for quite some time with the use of intelligence information provided by the Nigerian side.
Without ruling out the possibility of further attack, the minister said the leadership of the two countries will decide on it.
Recently, Trump has made frequent references to what he called the plight of Christians in Nigeria.
“I have previously warned these Terrorists that if they did not stop the slaughtering of Christians, there would be hell to pay, and tonight, there was.” He added that “Pentagon conducted numerous perfect strikes against Islamic State targets in the region”.
Earlier, Nigerian Air Marshal, Kelvin Aneke, the air force chief of staff, had in a Christmas message to troops urged them not to leave any stone unturned in the efforts to subdue terrorism, banditry and other forms of criminality within the northwest region.
Meanwhile, Nigeria’s foreign ministry has said in a post on X that the strikes were carried out as part of ongoing security cooperation with the United States, involving intelligence sharing and strategic coordination to target militant groups.
“This has led to precision hits on terrorist targets in Nigeria by air strikes in the North West,” the ministry said.
