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11:08 27.12.2025 •
Photo: ‘Al Jazeera’
The United States launched a number of strikes against the Islamic State in northwestern Nigeria, President Trump announced on Thursday, the latest American military campaign against a nonstate adversary — in this case, Islamic jihadis who the president asserts have been slaughtering Christians, ‘The New York Times’ reports.
The strike involved more than a dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles fired off a Navy ship in the Gulf of Guinea, hitting insurgents in two ISIS (banned in Russia) camps in northwest Nigeria’s Sokoto State, according to a U.S. military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters. The operation was done in coordination with the Nigerian military, the official said.
In a statement, U.S. Africa Command said its initial assessment concluded that “multiple” terrorists were killed in the strike.
“U.S. Africa Command is working with our Nigerian and regional partners to increase counter terrorism cooperation efforts related to ongoing violence and threats against innocent lives,” Gen. Dagvin Anderson, the commander of U.S. Africa Command, said in a statement. “Our goal is to protect Americans and disrupt violent extremist organizations wherever they are.”
The attack occurred in a region along the border with Niger, where a branch of ISIS called the Islamic State-Sahel 9banned in Russia) has been attacking both government forces and civilians, according to Caleb Weiss, a counterterrorism analyst and editor with FDD’s Long War Journal.
An insurgency there has gone on for more than a decade, killing thousands of Christians and Muslims across sectarian lines. The Nigerian authorities have rejected allegations of a Christian genocide, noting that the web of violent armed groups, with different motives and spread across the country, kills as many Muslims as Christians.
However, Nigerian officials have stepped up engagement with the U.S. in recent weeks, after Mr. Trump ordered the Defense Department in November to prepare to intervene militarily in Nigeria to protect Christians.
Trump seems to love a Bomb
The strikes in Nigeria mark the second time in a week that Mr. Trump has ordered American military retaliation against a branch of the Islamic State. Last week, the United States carried out dozens of airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria, fulfilling the president’s vow to avenge the deaths of two Army soldiers and a civilian interpreter killed in a terrorist attack there earlier in the month.
Mr. Trump, in his Truth Social post, said that “under my leadership, our Country will not allow Radical Islamic Terrorism to prosper.” He added: “May God Bless our Military, and MERRY CHRISTMAS to all, including the dead Terrorists, of which there will be many more if their slaughter of Christians continues.”
The unprecedented Christmas Day strikes
The United States has launched “powerful and deadly” strikes against groups of islamists in Nigeria, President Donald Trump said on Thursday, ‘Al Jazeera’ writes.
The unprecedented Christmas Day strikes came after weeks of accusations from Trump and top Republicans about an alleged “Christian genocide” they say has been enabled by the Nigerian government. They represent the first known direct US military intervention in the troubled, conflict-racked country.
Neither side has shared precise information about the identity of the targets struck and the results of the strikes. Security analyst Kabir Adamu from Beacon Security and Intelligence in Abuja told Al Jazeera the likely targets are members of “Lakurawa”, an armed group linked to an offshoot of ISIL, and which has only recently become known.
One town which appeared to have been hit was Jabo in the northwestern Sokoto State, but no ISIL-linked cells are known to operate there. Furthermore, when Trump and other US right wingers have referred to a “Christian genocide” In Nigeria, they have usually mentioned an entirely different area in central Nigeria.
Launching the strikes on Christmas Day and on locations in northwest Nigeria, where the Sokoto Caliphate, responsible for the spread of Islam into Nigeria and revered by Nigerian muslims, is highly symbolic, analyst Femi Owolade of the UK’s Sheffield Hallam University told Al Jazeera, and plays into the Trump administration’s narrative of “saving” Nigerian Christians.
What do we know about the targets?
At least one town – Jabo in Nigeria’s northwestern Sokoto State – was confirmed to have been hit, analyst Adamu said. Photos shared on social media by residents there appear to confirm the location, with some posting what appear to be fragments of a bomb and others posting videos of a large fire on a farm. The information could not be independently verified by Al Jazeera.
“There were no casualties as of this morning,” Adamu said, adding that it’s unclear why Jabo was chosen, as there are no known ISIL-linked terror cells there.
Locals on social media also questioned why their town had been targeted.
A spokesperson for the Nigerian Foreign Ministry told Al Jazeera that the strikes had been carried out based on intelligence provided by Nigeria.
Is ISIL operating in Nigeria?
Yes, about six ideological armed groups exist in Nigeria, all of them linked to either ISIL (ISIS) or al-Qaeda (both banned in Russia).
They have targeted both Christian and Muslim communities in their areas of operation in the country’s predominantly Muslim northeast and northwest regions.
United States Senator Ted Cruz first accused Nigeria’s government of enabling a “massacre” against Christians in October 2025, citing a rising number of attacks against the community in the country’s central Middle Belt region, which is separate from the violence in the north.
Then, in November, Trump also accused Nigeria of a Christian genocide, referring to ISIL, and appearing to link the two separate issues. He also referred to Nigeria as a “Country of National Concern”.
What is really happening in Nigeria?
The situation in Nigeria is far more complex than has been presented by the Trump administration, which appears to conflate two separate issues.
Nigeria is a vast country of 200 million people from more than 250 ethnic groups. It suffers not just at the hands of the ideological armed groups but also as a result of ethnoreligious violence.
The fertile Middle Belt region of the country, which Cruz referred to, has long been a hotbed of violence between predominantly Muslim herders from the majority Fulani ethnic group and Christian farming communities from different minority ethnic groups who have repeatedly clashed over land and water resources.
The violence has grown in scale and weaponry over the past few years, and has largely targeted Christian farming communities.
The farmers say herder groups attack their communities in lethal raids using sophisticated weapons, burn whole villages to the ground and massacre civilians. They also target infrastructure like schools, clinics, grain reserves, churches and boreholes.
In May, Amnesty International reported that close to 10,000 people had been killed since 2023, including children, in the worst-affected states of Benue and Plateau, and that more than 500,000 people have been displaced.
How much of a say did Nigeria have in the US strikes?
The Nigerian Foreign Ministry said the strikes had been carried out with the consent of Nigeria. Locally, however, Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu has come under fire from opposition politicians who say the US strikes represent a violation of the country’s sovereignty.
“Judging by the nature of the confirmed strike on a village in Sokoto, it is clear that the US President under whose authority this operation occurred neither understands nor genuinely cares about Nigeria or Nigerians,” Omoyele Sowore, a former presidential candidate and leader of the African Action Congress, said in a statement.
“It is deeply troubling that Nigeria [Africa’s most populous nation] lacks the capable and sovereign leadership required to protect its people and its territory.”
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