US warns of more Nigeria strikes as Abuja talks of ‘joint ongoing operations’ | Nigeria

US defense secretary Pete Hegseth warned of new attacks on Islamic State targets in northwestern Nigeria, just hours after the US military moved against militant camps in what Donald Trump described as efforts to stop the killing of Christians.

hegseth wrote to x: “The President said clearly last month: The killing of innocent Christians in Nigeria (and elsewhere) must end. [Pentagon] ISIS learned tonight, on Christmas, that it is always ready. More to come…

“We are grateful for the support and cooperation of the Nigerian government. Merry Christmas!”

Nigerian foreign minister Yusuf Tuggar said on Friday that the US strikes, which came after Trump accused the Nigerian government of failing to stop the killing of Christians in the country, were “part of ongoing joint operations.”

Nigeria is officially secular and its population is almost evenly divided between Muslims (53%) and Christians (45%). Violence against Christians attracted the attention of the religious right in the United States, which called it persecution. The Nigerian government pointed out that armed groups target Christians and Muslims.

Tuggar said he provided intelligence on airstrikes in Nigeria’s Sokoto state. Channels Television on Friday. He said he spoke to his US counterpart Marco Rubio for 19 minutes, then called Nigerian President Bola Tinubu and then spoke to Rubio again for another five minutes.

“We are working closely with the Americans,” Tuggar said. “This is what we always hoped for – working with Americans, working with other countries, fighting terrorism, stopping the deaths of innocent Nigerians… This is a joint effort.”

The US military’s Africa Command (Africom) said that the attacks in Sokoto state were carried out in coordination with Nigerian authorities. An Africom statement, previously published on X and later removed, stated that these attacks were carried out at the request of Nigerian authorities.

“Tonight, at my direction as Commander in Chief, the United States launched a powerful and deadly offensive against the ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria, targeting and brutally killing, primarily innocent Christians, at levels not seen in years, even centuries,” Trump wrote on the Truth Social platform on Thursday.

“I had previously warned these Terrorists that there would be hell to pay if they did not stop the slaughter of Christians, and tonight it happened. The War Department carried out many excellent attacks as only the United States can.”

Neither the US nor Nigerian officials have made a statement about whether there were any deaths in the airstrikes. Asked if there would be more, Tuggar said: “You can call this a new phase of an old conflict. For us, this is something that continues.”

US aircraft conducted surveillance missions in the region earlier this month. They are believed to be using an airport in neighboring Ghana as a base.

The forests in Sokoto, which borders Niger to the north, are used as bases by armed bandit gangs and members of the Islamic State Sahel Province (ISSP), known locally as Lakurawa. Some analysts say the ISIS branch was founded when a group of shepherds banded together to fight bandits in the absence of government support. The state is mostly Muslim.

Conflicts in some parts of Nigeria between Muslim herders and predominantly Christian farming communities have been exacerbated by ethnicity and religion, but are rooted in competition for land and water.

Priests and priests are being kidnapped for ransom, but some experts say this may be a trend driven by criminal incentives rather than religious discrimination.

Tuggar said the operation was aimed at “protecting Nigerians and innocent lives” and not any religion. “The President emphasized yesterday that it must be made clear that this is a joint operation before approving it,” he said. “This is not targeting any religion, it’s not just being done in the name of a religion.”

A day before the Sokoto attacks, at least five people were killed and more than 30 people were seriously injured in a suicide attack on a mosque in northeastern Nigeria on Christmas Eve. The Nigerian military attributed the attack to the jihadist group Boko Haram, which has been waging an insurgency in the region for almost two decades, mostly separate from the violence in the northwest.

There were approximately 6,000 violent incidents in Nigeria in 2025, and approximately half of them targeted civilians. Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (Acled), a non-profit conflict monitor. Katsina state, another Muslim-majority state to the east of Sokoto, was the state with the highest number of cases with 706 cases. Sokoto had the fourth highest number of cases with 353 cases.

Trump positioned himself as the “peace candidate” in the 2024 US presidential elections and ran his campaign with the promise of ridding Washington of decades of “endless wars”.

But the first year of his second term in the White House was marked by a series of military interventions overseas, including attacks on countries including Yemen, Iran and Syria, as well as a major military buildup targeting Venezuela in the Caribbean.