President Donald Trump has confirmed that United States forces carried out what he described as “powerful and deadly” airstrikes against Islamic State (ISIS) militants in northwestern Nigeria on Thursday, following his earlier warning to the group to halt attacks on Christians in the country.
The U.S. Department of Defense said the operation, conducted at the request of Nigerian authorities, resulted in the deaths of “multiple ISIS terrorists,” although specific operational details were not disclosed.
According to Trump, the strikes were executed on Christmas Day, underscoring what he portrayed as a decisive military response to continued violence.
“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,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform.
“May God Bless our Military,” he added, before concluding provocatively, “MERRY CHRISTMAS to all, including the dead Terrorists, of which there will be many more if their slaughter of Christians continues.”
Confirming the operation, the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) said in a post on X that it carried out a strike “at the request of Nigerian authorities in (Sokoto state) killing multiple ISIS terrorists.”
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth also took to X to commend the readiness of the Pentagon, noting that he was “grateful for Nigerian government support & cooperation.”
The operation marks the first publicly acknowledged U.S. military strike in Nigeria under Trump’s leadership and follows sharp remarks he made in October and November, when he accused Nigeria of failing to protect Christians, describing the situation as an “existential threat” that amounted to “genocide” amid the country’s complex security challenges.
While the renewed diplomatic and military posture was welcomed by some observers, others warned that such rhetoric risked inflaming religious tensions in Africa’s most populous nation, which has a history of sporadic sectarian violence.
Nigeria’s government and several independent analysts have consistently rejected framing the country’s insecurity as religious persecution, arguing instead that the violence is driven by a mix of terrorism, criminality, and governance challenges—a narrative frequently disputed by Christian advocacy groups in the United States and Europe.
Nevertheless, Trump, who has repeatedly highlighted what his administration describes as the global persecution of Christians, stressed that Washington was prepared to take direct military action in Nigeria to counter such killings.
Earlier this year, the United States placed Nigeria back on its list of countries of “particular concern” over religious freedom and imposed new restrictions on the issuance of visas to Nigerians.
Nigeria is almost evenly split between a predominantly Muslim north and a largely Christian south, a demographic balance that has long shaped its political and social dynamics.
The country’s northeast has endured more than 15 years of insurgency by the Islamist Boko Haram group, a conflict that has claimed over 40,000 lives and displaced around two million people.
At the same time, vast areas of Nigeria’s northwest, north-central and central regions have been plagued by criminal gangs, commonly referred to as “bandits,” who routinely raid villages, kill residents and carry out mass kidnappings for ransom.
