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By Trevor Hunnicutt, Idrees Ali and Simon Lewis
PALM BEACH, Florida, Dec 25 (Reuters) – The United States carried out an airstrike against Islamic State militants in northwest Nigeria at the request of Nigeria’s government, U.S. President Donald Trump and the U.S. military said on Thursday, claiming the group had been targeting Christians in the region.
“Tonight, at my direction as Commander in Chief, 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!,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
The U.S. military’s Africa Command said on X the strike was conducted at the request of Nigerian authorities and killed multiple ISIS militants.
The strike comes after Trump starting in late October began warning that Christianity faces an “existential threat” in Nigeria and threatened to militarily intervene in the West African country over what he says is its failure to stop violence targeting Christian communities.
Reuters reported on Monday the U.S. had been conducting intelligence-gathering flights over large parts of Nigeria since late November.
Nigeria’s government has said armed groups target both Muslims and Christians, and U.S. claims that Christians face persecution do not represent a complex security situation and ignore efforts to safeguard religious freedom. But it has agreed to work with the U.S. to bolster its forces against militant groups.
The country’s population is split between Muslims living primarily in the north and Christians in the south.
The president issued his statement on Christmas Day while he was at his Palm Beach, Florida, Mar-a-Lago Club, where he has been spending the holiday. He had no public events during the day and was last seen by the reporters traveling with him on Wednesday night.
(Reporting by Idrees Ali and Trevor Hunnicutt; additional reporting by Surbhi Misra in Bengaluru; writing by Simon Lewis; Editing by Chris Reese)
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