President Donald Trump said US forces conducted \u201cpowerful and deadly\u201d strikes on Thursday against Islamic State (IS) militants in northwestern Nigeria, weeks after he warned against any systemic assault on Christians in the country.<\/p>\n
The Nigerian foreign ministry early on Friday confirmed the air strikes, describing them as \u201cprecision hits on terrorist targets\u201d in the country.<\/p>\n
The Department of Defence\u2019s US Africa Command said \u201cmultiple ISIS terrorists\u201d were killed in an attack in Sokoto state conducted at the request of Nigerian authorities, but few details were provided and it was not clear how many people died.<\/p>\n
The strikes hit IS targets on Christmas Day, according to Trump.<\/p>\n
\u201cI 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,\u201d he said in a post on his Truth Social platform.<\/p>\n
\u201cMay God Bless our Military,\u201d he said, adding provocatively, \u201cMERRY CHRISTMAS to all, including the dead Terrorists, of which there will be many more if their slaughter of Christians continues.\u201d<\/p>\n
The attacks mark the first by US forces in Nigeria under Trump, and come after the Republican leader unexpectedly berated the west African nation in October and November, saying Christians there faced an \u201cexistential threat\u201d that amounted to \u201cgenocide\u201d amid Nigeria\u2019s myriad armed conflicts.<\/p>\n
That diplomatic offensive was welcomed by some but interpreted by others as inflaming religious tensions in Africa\u2019s most populous country, which has seen bouts of sectarian violence in the past.<\/p>\n
Nigeria\u2019s government and independent analysts reject framing the country\u2019s violence in terms of religious persecution \u2014 a narrative long used by the Christian right in the United States and Europe.<\/p>\n
But Trump, spotlighting what his administration says is global persecution of Christians, stressed last month that Washington was ready to take military action in Nigeria \u2014 with \u201cguns-a-blazing\u201d \u2014 to counter such killings.<\/p>\n
\u2018Grateful\u2019 for cooperation
\nThe Nigerian foreign ministry said the country was engaged with international partners against terrorism.<\/p>\n
\u201cNigerian authorities remain engaged in structured security cooperation with international partners, including the United States of America, in addressing the persistent threat of terrorism and violent extremism,\u201d the ministry said in a statement on Friday.<\/p>\n
Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth took to X to say he was \u201cgrateful for Nigerian government support & cooperation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President Donald Trump said US forces conducted \u201cpowerful and deadly\u201d strikes on Thursday against Islamic State (IS) militants in northwestern Nigeria, weeks after he warned against any systemic assault on Christians in the country. The Nigerian foreign ministry early on Friday confirmed the air strikes, describing them as \u201cprecision hits on terrorist targets\u201d in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14573,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14572"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14574,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14572\/revisions\/14574"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}