West Palm Beach, Florida
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President Donald Trump said Thursday he’d ordered a deadly strike on Islamic State terrorists in Nigeria, who he has accused of persecuting Christians in the country.
“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!” the president wrote 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,” he went on. “The Department of War executed numerous perfect strikes, as only the United States is capable of doing.”
“Under my leadership, our Country will not allow Radical Islamic Terrorism to prosper. May God Bless our Military, and MERRY CHRISTMAS to all, including the dead Terrorists, of which there will be many more if their slaughter of Christians continues,” concluded the president, who is spending the Christmas holiday at his estate in Palm Beach.
CNN has reached out to the White House and the Nigerian government for additional comment. In a separate post on social media, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said he was “grateful for Nigerian government support & cooperation.”
Trump has focused for the last several months on the plight of Christians in Nigeria, including calling in November on his secretary of defense to “prepare for possible action” and warning the US would enter Nigeria “guns-a-blazing” to protect the Christian population of Africa’s most populous country.
On Christmas Eve, Nigerian President Bola Tinubu shared a “Christmas Goodwill Message” in which he wished Christians across his nation and the world a Merry Christmas and prayed for peace among individuals of differing religious beliefs.
“I stand committed to doing everything within my power to enshrine religious freedom in Nigeria and to protect Christians, Muslims, and all Nigerians from violence,” Tinubu said in a post on X.
The West African nation has grappled for years with deep-rooted security problems that are driven by various factors, including religiously motivated attacks. Observers say other violent conflicts arise from communal and ethnic tensions, as well as disputes between farmers and herders over limited access to natural resources.
In the fall, Trump accused Nigeria of religious freedom violations claiming that “Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria” and designating the nation as a “Country of Particular Concern” under the International Religious Freedom Act. The label is a suggestion that his administration has found that Nigeria has engaged in or tolerated “systematic, ongoing, (and) egregious violations of religious freedom.”
Both Christians and Muslims — the two main religious groups in the country of more than 230 million people — have been victims of attacks by radical Islamists, experts and analysts say.
The plight of Nigeria’s Christians has been an animating subject for American conservatives for years, with some of Trump’s top allies, including Sen. Ted Cruz, in recent months calling for US intervention after claiming Nigeria’s government wasn’t doing enough to prevent attacks on Christians.
Trump has cast himself a peacemaker, and entered office vowing to limit US military intervention abroad. Since returning to power, however, he has also ordered strikes on Iran’s nuclear program and overseen a massive military buildup around Venezuela, with the threat of strikes on land there.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
