The Trump administration has followed up on the president’s rhetoric about Christian persecution in Nigeria by launching military strikes against Islamic militants in the country. The attacks, justified by a misleading narrative about the nature of the Nigerian conflict, illustrate the Trump administration’s increasing use of military action in aggressive ways, often based on dubious justifications.
Trump launches missile strikes against Islamist militants in Nigeria
On Thursday, the U.S. military launched strikes against terrorists in Northern Nigeria affiliated with ISIS, also known as the Islamic State group. The New York Times reported that the Christmas Day strikes included over a dozen Tomahawk missiles fired by the Navy, striking two ISIS camps in Nigeria’s northwestern Sokoto State. The White House and President Donald Trump posted on social media that “the United States launched a powerful and deadly strike against ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria, who have been targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians at levels not seen for many years, and even Centuries!”
For weeks, Trump and others within his administration have publicly claimed that Muslims were killing and persecuting Christians in Nigeria, an assertion the Nigerian government has accurately called out as misleading and incomplete. Nevertheless, the claim of Christian persecution has played well with Trump’s conservative base. The Trump administration has gained high-profile support for its Nigeria claims, with rap superstar Nicki Minaj promoting them as part of her larger pro-MAGA turn in recent weeks. The administration’s Nigeria strikes represent a major escalation of its position on Nigeria. The strikes also fit with Trump’s increasingly aggressive use of the U.S. military, which conducted strikes against ISIS in Syria last week and is conducting ongoing controversial strikes against alleged drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean.
Nigeria faces an Islamist insurgency and rejects the Christian persecution narrative
For years, Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, has dealt with Islamic insurgents who operate in the heavily Muslim northern part of the country. For much of this period, the leading insurgent group has been Boko Haram, an extremist group infamous for conducting mass kidnappings of schoolgirls, among other violent attacks. The Middle East-based group ISIS later affiliated with Boko Haram, but the two groups eventually became rivals in Nigeria, leading to the creation of splinter groups such as the Islamic State West Africa Province in the northeast, and the Islamic State Sahel Province, also known locally as Lakurawa. It was not immediately clear which of these groups was the target of Thursday’s strikes. Although these groups have explicitly targeted Christians at various points in their operation, their concentration in the north of Nigeria means that many if not most of their victims have been other Muslims.
The Nigerian government approved of Thursday’s strikes and cooperated with the United States on the operation, while continuing to reject Trump’s claim of widespread Christian persecution in the country. Nigerian Foreign Minister Yusuf Tuggar told Nigeria’s Channels Television, “Nigeria is a multi-religious country, and we’re working with partners like the U.S. to fight terrorism and protect lives and property.” The government of Nigeria, a country split almost equally between Muslims and Christians, reiterated in a separate statement that the strikes were conducted “protecting civilian lives, safeguarding national unity, and upholding the rights and dignity of all citizens, irrespective of faith.”
For now, Nigeria is cooperating with the United States militarily while rejecting the Trump administration’s rhetoric. It is unclear whether the strikes will be followed by more joint operations or if U.S. intervention will have a long-term impact on the complicated conflict that has plagued Nigeria for years. Concerningly, however, the strikes are a further indication of Trump’s willingness to use deadly U.S. force for dubious reasons, a dangerous approach to foreign policy.