Nigerian official refuses to rule out AMERICAN troops on the ground after working with Trump to bomb ISIS

A Nigerian official suggested that American troops could be deployed to the region after the US bombed ISIS targets.

The secretary of state said his government did not rule out working with U.S. troops; This is something Donald Trump has suggested in recent weeks.

Yusuf Tuggar, when asked by CNN about Trump’s threat to send ‘firearms’ to the US military this week, said that the issue would be something the Nigerian government should ‘take into consideration’.

On Thursday, the Pentagon said the Nigerian government approved the attacks and cooperated with the U.S. military to carry them out.

However, the official also rejected Trump’s justification for the attacks; He said it was because ISIS terrorists in Nigeria were ‘primarily targeting and brutally killing innocent Christians’.

Tuggar rejected religious framing of the conflict, saying the action “is an attack against terrorism and will clearly show that it has nothing to do with religion, it is about protecting Nigerians and innocent lives.”

‘When you try to reduce this to just saying, ‘Oh, no, Muslims are killing Christians in Nigeria,’ you see how you can get it completely wrong. This is a regional conflict, he told Nigerian broadcaster Channels Television on Friday.

Nigerian officials did not elaborate on the possibility of accepting US troops on the ground or further strikes in the near future, and Tuggar said this would only be considered following Trump’s suggestion that he might send ‘firearms’.

A video released by the Pentagon showed at least one projectile being launched from a warship. A US defense official said the attack targeted several militants in known ISIS camps.

Trump announced he would launch a “powerful and deadly” strike against the “terrorist scum” of ISIS in Nigeria on Christmas Day and warned radicals would continue to pay the price for persecuting Christians.

The President, who had previously threatened to send the US military into the West African country with ‘firearms’, made the announcement on Truth Social on Thursday evening.

‘Tonight, at my direction as Commander-in-Chief, the United States launched a powerful and lethal offensive against the ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria, primarily targeting and brutally murdering innocent Christians, at levels not seen in many years, even centuries!’ he wrote.

Nigeria’s foreign ministry said the attacks were carried out as part of ongoing security cooperation with the United States, which includes intelligence sharing and strategic coordination to target militant groups.

Nigerian President Bola Tinubu also said that the country ‘welcomed’ the American aid.

But there is a perception that the government is publicly cooperating with the United States to prevent the humiliating unilateral military intervention that Trump threatened a month ago.

The strikes divided opinion in Congress, with Democratic Representative Debbie Dingell saying Congress had received “very little” information about Trump’s move.

Dingell called the lack of information sharing from the White House “an ongoing pattern” and said he believed “Congress should be making most of these decisions regarding the surge.”

Nigerian President Bola Tinubu said his country ‘welcomed’ US aid

Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton, a key proponent of Trump’s attacks on drug ships in Venezuela, praised the actions in Nigeria.

Cotton, the chairman of the Senate intelligence committee and a former army officer, wrote of

Republican Congressman Don Bacon from Nebraska also celebrated the US attacks against ISIS: Describing military action as ‘correct’ Even though he criticized Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s attacks on Venezuela earlier this month.

Brad Brandon, managing director of Across Nigeria, told the Daily Mail exclusively: ‘Members of Congress who criticize the President’s counterterrorism actions in Nigeria reveal a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation on the ground’ and that ‘their hostility towards President Trump clouds objective judgment.’

“There is no doubt that this action was fully justified and that the use of U.S. military capabilities disrupted ISIS’s ability to continue slaughtering innocent civilians,” Brandon added.

A US defense official said the strikes hit scores of militants in known ISIS camps.

Trump said in his long post that the targets have been waiting for this for a while.

‘I had previously warned these Terrorists that if they did not stop the slaughter of Christians there would be hell to pay, and tonight it happened.’

‘The War Department has carried out countless brilliant attacks that only the United States could do. “Under my leadership, our country will not allow Radical Islamic Terrorism to thrive,” Trump added.

Nigeria has been rocked by internal violence since 2009 following a jihadist insurgency led by the northeastern extremist group Boko Haram.

The President warned that terrorists will continue to pay the price if the killing of innocent Christians continues.

‘May God bless our Army and I wish HAPPY HOLIDAYS to all, including the dead Terrorists, of whom there will be many more if the massacre of Christians continues.’

The President’s post did not include information about how the strike was carried out and what its effects were. The White House did not immediately provide further details.

Hegseth confirmed the president’s message in his own social media post.

He wrote: ‘The President said clearly last month: The killing of innocent Christians in Nigeria (and elsewhere) must end.

‘The Ministry of War is always ready, so ISIS found out tonight, on Christmas. More to come… We are grateful for the support and cooperation of the Nigerian government. Merry christmas!’

The northwestern region where Thursday’s airstrikes took place has been grappling since 2024 with rising violence from members of the Lakurawa sect, a hardline Sunni Islamist movement that claims ties to the Islamic State group.

Founded as an outlaw outfit, the group evolved into a jihadist movement that enforced strict Islamist rule in hundreds of villages in the region. Nigeria designated the group a terrorist organization earlier this year.

“It is very likely that this is the group that Trump is talking about when he talks about US military strikes in Nigeria,” said Confidence MacHarry, senior analyst at Lagos-based SBM Intelligence. ‘They are also linked to widespread cattle theft; Most of the stolen animals go to markets along the Nigeria-Niger border.’