{"id":655135,"date":"2025-12-26T03:06:21","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T03:06:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/655135\/"},"modified":"2025-12-26T03:06:21","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T03:06:21","slug":"trump-says-us-launched-strike-against-isil-in-northwest-nigeria-donald-trump-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/655135\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump says US launched strike against ISIL in northwest Nigeria | Donald Trump News"},"content":{"rendered":"

DEVELOPING STORY<\/strong>DEVELOPING STORY, <\/p>\n

US president says \u2018deadly strike\u2019 in Nigeria targeted ISIL fighters who had killed \u2018primarily, innocent Christians\u2019.<\/p>\n

The United \u200dStates \u200dhas carried out an air strike against ISIL (ISIS)<\/a> fighters in northwest Nigeria, US \u2060President Donald Trump \u200bsaid.<\/p>\n

\u201cTonight, \u2060at my direction as Commander in Chief, the United States launched a powerful and \u200bdeadly strike \u200cagainst ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria,\u201d \u200cTrump said in a post on his Truth Social platform on Thursday evening.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list<\/p>\n

Trump said ISIL fighters had \u201c\u200ctargeted and viciously\u201d killed \u201cprimarily, innocent Christians, at \u2060levels not seen for many years, and even Centuries!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI have previously warned<\/a> these Terrorists that if they did not stop the slaughtering of Christians, there would be hell to pay, and tonight, there was,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

The US military\u2019s Africa Command (AFRICOM), which is responsible for operations in Africa, said in a post on X that the air strike was carried out \u201cat the request of Nigerian authorities\u201d and had killed \u201cmultiple ISIS terrorists\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cGrateful for Nigerian government support & cooperation,\u201d US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth wrote on social media, warning also of \u201cmore to come\u201d, without providing details.<\/p>\n

In a statement, AFRICOM said the strike occurred in \u201cSoboto state,\u201d an apparent reference to Nigeria\u2019s Sokoto State.<\/p>\n

\"[Al[Al Jazeera]<\/p>\n

The US military action comes weeks after Trump said he had ordered the Pentagon to begin planning for potential military action in Nigeria following claims of Christian persecution in the country.<\/p>\n

Nigeria\u2019s government had dismissed Trump\u2019s assertions<\/a>, saying armed groups target both Muslim and Christian communities in the country, and US claims that Christians face persecution \u200cdo not represent a complex security situation<\/a> and ignore efforts by Nigerian authorities to safeguard religious freedom.<\/p>\n

Nigeria\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement shortly after Trump announced the US strike, confirming early on Friday that Nigerian authorities were \u201cengaged in structured security cooperation with international partners, including the United States of America, in addressing the persistent threat of terrorism and violent extremism\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has led to precision hits on terrorist targets in Nigeria by air strikes in the North West,\u201d the ministry said.<\/p>\n

Al Jazeera\u2019s Ahmed Idris, reporting from Lagos in Nigeria, said pictures are circulating on social media of missile fragments following a strike outside a village in Sokoto State that did not cause casualties.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo look at the issue of alleged Christian genocide in Nigeria, Sokoto State is probably the last place many Nigerians would think it\u2019s happening,\u201d Idris said, explaining that the vast majority of the state\u2019s population is Muslim and there had been few if any attacks on Christians in the region that he could recall.<\/p>\n

Reporting from Washington, DC, Al Jazeera\u2019s Shihab Rattansi said the threat of US military action in Nigeria had been \u201cpercolating for some time\u201d, and Donald Trump had accused Nigeria of not doing enough to protect its Christian community in his first term as president.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut in the last two months or so, with congressional pressure and the State Department, they declared Nigeria a particular country of concern when it came to the rights of Christians, and we had heard that the US had begun overflight surveillance of Nigeria from an airbase in Accra, in Ghana, over the last several weeks. And now we have this,\u201d Rattansi said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn Christmas Day, the Trump administration acts. This will go down very well with Trump\u2019s Christian evangelical base, I am sure,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Trump issued his attack statement on Christmas Day while he was at \u200chis Palm Beach, Florida, Mar-a-Lago Club, where he has been spending the holiday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY, US president says \u2018deadly strike\u2019 in Nigeria targeted ISIL fighters who had killed \u2018primarily, innocent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":655136,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[2740,32,2597,12,3007,49,978,286,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-655135","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-africa","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-military","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-nigeria","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-us-canada","16":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}