U.S. strikes Islamic State targets in northwest Nigeria at Abuja’s request, military says
The United States carried out an airstrike against suspected Islamic State militants in northwest Nigeria, U.S. Africa Command said, in an operation coordinated with Nigerian authorities that killed multiple militants in Sokoto state.
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Nigeria’s foreign ministry confirmed the action as part of ongoing security cooperation with Washington that includes intelligence sharing and “strategic coordination to target militant groups.” Foreign Minister Yusuf Maitama Tuggar, without naming ISIS specifically, said the operation had been planned “for quite some time” using intelligence provided by the Nigerian side. He did not rule out further strikes, saying that would depend on decisions by the two governments’ leadership.
President Donald Trump said he authorized the strike, claiming the targeted group had been attacking Christians. “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,” he wrote on Truth Social.
U.S. Africa Command said the strike was conducted in coordination with Nigerian authorities. A U.S. defense official said it hit multiple militants at known ISIS camps. A video posted by the Pentagon showed at least one projectile launched from a warship. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth thanked the Nigerian government for its cooperation and signaled “More to come.”
The operation follows weeks of intensified attention to insecurity in Nigeria. Reports say the U.S. has conducted intelligence-gathering flights over large parts of the country since late November. Trump has warned that Christianity faces an “existential threat” in Nigeria and previously threatened to intervene over what he called failures to stop violence against Christian communities.
Abuja has pushed back on the narrow framing of the crisis, saying armed groups target both Muslims and Christians and that U.S. claims of Christian persecution do not reflect the complexity of the security landscape or the government’s efforts to safeguard religious freedom. Nigeria’s population is roughly split between Muslims, primarily in the north, and Christians in the south.
The strike comes amid a grim run of attacks. On Sunday, a suspected suicide bomber killed at least five people and injured 35 at a mosque in Nigeria’s northeast, a region battered for years by Islamist insurgents. In a Christmas message, President Bola Tinubu urged peace “especially between individuals of differing religious beliefs,” and pledged to protect all Nigerians from violence and to enshrine religious freedom.
Trump issued his statement on the Nigeria strike from his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, where he has been spending the holiday. The U.S. military last week launched separate large-scale strikes on dozens of Islamic State targets in Syria after Trump vowed to retaliate for a suspected ISIS attack on American personnel there.
Neither Washington nor Abuja released details on potential civilian casualties or the precise munitions used in Sokoto. The Nigerian foreign ministry characterized the action as a “precision” strike, part of a broader campaign to degrade militant networks that have exploited porous borders, rural insecurity and intercommunal tensions across the northwest.
The joint operation underscores deepening U.S.-Nigeria security coordination in a region where shifting militant allegiances and criminal syndicates complicate military response. It also highlights the political sensitivity of religiously framed violence in Africa’s most populous country, where officials stress a need for calibrated operations, intelligence-led targeting and measures to protect civilians.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
