{"id":13454,"date":"2026-01-09T15:14:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T15:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/13454\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T15:14:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T15:14:08","slug":"finally-trump-acknowledges-muslim-killings-in-nigeria-hints-of-more-u-s-strikes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/13454\/","title":{"rendered":"Finally, Trump Acknowledges Muslim Killings in Nigeria, Hints of More U.S. Strikes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>            <a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/prnigeria.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/donald-trump-3-rt-gmh-251002_1759325953103_hpMain_16x9_992.jpg?fit=992%2C558&amp;ssl=1\" data-caption=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" class=\"entry-thumb td-modal-image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/donald-trump-3-rt-gmh-251002_1759325953103_hpMain_16x9_992.jpg\"   alt=\"\" title=\"donald-trump-3-rt-gmh-251002_1759325953103_hpMain_16x9_992\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Finally, Trump Acknowledges Muslim Killings in Nigeria, Hints of More U.S. Strikes<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">United States President Donald Trump has acknowledged that Muslims are also being killed in Nigeria but maintained that Christians remain the primary targets of violent attacks, warning that the United States could carry out additional military strikes if such violence persists.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Trump made the remarks in an interview with The New York Times published on Thursday, while responding to questions about a U.S. military strike conducted on Christmas Day in Nigeria.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The U.S. military had said the operation targeted Islamic State militants in northwest Nigeria and was carried out at the request of the Nigerian government. Nigerian authorities, however, described the action as a \u201cjoint operation\u201d against \u201cterrorists,\u201d stressing that it was not directed at any particular religious group.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cI\u2019d love to make it a one-time strike,\u201d Trump said. \u201cBut if they continue to kill Christians, it will be a many-time strike.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">When asked to respond to comments by his Africa adviser that Islamic State and Boko Haram militants were killing more Muslims than Christians, Trump said: \u201cI think that Muslims are being killed also in Nigeria. But it\u2019s mostly Christians.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">In late October, Trump began publicly warning that Christianity faces what he described as an \u201cexistential threat\u201d in Nigeria, accusing the Nigerian government of failing to adequately protect Christian communities and threatening U.S. military intervention.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Nigeria, Africa\u2019s most populous country with over 230 million people, is almost evenly divided between Christians, who are predominantly in the south, and Muslims, who are mainly based in the north.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Despite persistent security challenges, including insurgency-related violence, banditry and kidnappings, Nigerian authorities have consistently rejected claims of systematic persecution of Christians. The government has emphasized that insurgent attacks have claimed both Muslim and Christian lives.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">While Abuja has expressed willingness to cooperate with Washington in combating militant groups, it has firmly opposed narratives suggesting that violence in the country is directed exclusively at Christians.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">By <a href=\"https:\/\/prnigeria.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">PRNigeria<\/a><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">(Reuters)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Finally, Trump Acknowledges Muslim Killings in Nigeria, Hints of More U.S. Strikes United States President Donald Trump has&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13455,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[1129,750,122,9208],"class_list":{"0":"post-13454","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nigeria","8":"tag-christian","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-nigeria","11":"tag-terrorists"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}