American President Donald Trump makes claims over US air strikes in Nigeria
American President Donald Trump makes claims over US air strikes in Nigeria
U.S. President Donald Trump has claimed that American military strikes targeting Islamic State-linked militants in Nigeria have significantly reduced attacks on Christian communities, vowing that Washington would continue to pursue terrorist groups operating in the country.
Speaking at an event in Washington on Friday, Trump defended his administration’s decision to authorise military operations against fighters linked to the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), saying the intervention helped stop what he described as widespread killings of Christians.
“As you know, we recently struck Nigeria and largely ended the slaughter of great Christian populations,” Trump said.
“They have a great Christian population. They were being butchered—thousands and thousands of people were being killed, children, women, old people, just being slaughtered, hacked to death.”
The U.S. president said the strikes had sent a strong message to the militant group, discouraging further attacks.
“They know that if they go further, the attack will be far greater and that they don’t want to really get involved anymore so much,” he said.
Trump also claimed that the operations resulted in the elimination of several top militant commanders.
“We hit them very hard. We knocked out their leader. We knocked out their second leader and their third leader,” he said, drawing parallels with recent U.S. military operations against Iran.
Reaffirming his administration’s commitment to combating religious persecution, Trump declared: “I’m saving Christians throughout the world, even though we are not in those various countries where you read about this.”
He added that the United States would continue targeting terrorist organisations wherever they operate, using what he described as “the greatest weapons on earth” to prevent attacks on civilians.
Trump’s remarks come amid growing security cooperation between Washington and Abuja in the fight against extremist groups, including ISWAP. The United States has expanded intelligence sharing and military assistance to Nigeria as part of broader counterterrorism efforts.
Nigeria has battled insurgency for more than a decade, with Boko Haram, ISWAP and other armed groups carrying out deadly attacks, kidnappings and mass displacement, particularly in the North-East and parts of the North-West.
While Trump has repeatedly highlighted attacks on Christians in Nigeria, Nigerian authorities and independent security analysts have maintained that insurgent violence affects both Christians and Muslims.
They note that terrorism, banditry, communal conflicts and disputes over land and resources remain major drivers of insecurity across the country.
Human rights organisations have also documented attacks on churches, Christian communities and clergy, as well as deadly assaults, abductions and displacement of Muslim communities by insurgents and criminal gangs.
