The U.S. launched a strike involving at least a dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles against Islamic State-Sahel targets in Nigeria's northwest Sokoto State. The strike comes after Donald Trump promised retaliation for the Washington, D.C., attack on two National Guard soldiers in early November.
"Tonight, at my direction as Commander in Chief, 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!" Trump said Thursday on Truth Social.
"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. The Department of War executed numerous perfect strikes, as only the United States is capable of doing."
The operation was done in coordination with the Nigerian military, a Pentagon official told the New York Times.
U.S. Africa Command said in a statement 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.”
Over the past several months, the cries for help from Nigerian Christians—who were being systematically slaughtered, their churches burned, and their priests and ministers executed—had grown louder. Several Republican members of Congress took up the cause of Christians all across Africa who were being persecuted for their beliefs.
Nigeria is of particular concern because it is widely believed in the West that the government is either incapable of protecting Christians or is not doing enough to stop the slaughter. The Nigerian government is giving the U.S. the go-ahead to strike ISIS on Nigerian soil as an acknowledgment that the writ of Nigerian law does not run in much of the northwestern part of the country.
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.
"The violence in the northwest region, where the strikes occurred, is driven in large part by armed bandits and gangs kidnapping for ransom," reports the Times. "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."
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said Thursday, "I commend President Trump, Secretary Hegseth, and our brave troops for these strikes against bloodthirsty ISIS savages who are not only persecuting Christians, but also have killed many Americans."
More than 12,000 civilians have been killed in the fighting this year alone. Since there are far fewer Christians in Nigeria than Muslims, the impact on Christian communities is far more devastating. If the stated goal of ISIS is to empty Africa of Christians, they appear to be true to their word.
In truth, a strike on one anti-Christian terrorist group will do little to protect Christians in Nigeria. But it certainly puts the terrorists on notice that it's a whole new ballgame and the U.S. is playing to win.
