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President Donald Trump said there could be more strikes by \u200cthe U.S. in Nigeria if Christians are killed in the African nation, even as Nigeria has previously denied Christians there are subjected to systematic persecution. Trump’s \u2060comments in an interview with the New York Times were published on the newspaper’s website on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Trump made the remarks when asked about Washington’s Christmas Day military strike in Nigeria. The U.S. military said at the \u200btime it carried out a strike against Islamic State militants in northwest Nigeria at the \u200drequest of Nigeria’s government. Nigeria said then that the strike was a “joint operation” targeting “terrorists,” and had “nothing to do with a particular religion.”<\/p>\n
“I’d love to make it a one-time strike … But if they continue to kill Christians, it will be a many-time strike,” Trump \u2060was \u200cquoted as saying. When asked \u2060about his own Africa adviser having said that Islamic State and Boko Haram militants were killing more Muslims than Christians, Trump \u200dresponded: “I think that Muslims are being killed also in Nigeria. But it’s mostly Christians.” Trump, in late October, began \u200bwarning that Christianity faces an “existential threat” in Nigeria and threatened to militarily intervene in the \u2060West African country over what he says is its failure to stop violence targeting Christian communities.<\/p>\n
Nigeria’s population of over 230 million \u2060people is roughly evenly divided among Christians, who predominate in the south, and Muslims, who predominate in the north. While Nigeria has had persistent security problems, including violence and kidnappings by Islamist insurgents \u2060in the north, it strongly denies that Christians are subjected to systematic persecution.<\/p>\n
Its government responded to Trump’s past \u2060threats by saying it \u200cintended to work with Washington against militants, while rejecting U.S. language that suggested Christians were in particular peril. Nigerian authorities note that militants have killed many Muslims \u2060as well as Christians. <\/p>\n
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(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)<\/p>\n
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