Critics Argue Striking Nigeria Won't 'Make Americans Safer' as US Warns of 'More to Come'

After the Trump administration bombed alleged Islamic State targets in Nigeria on Christmas Day, Gen. Dagvin Anderson of US Africa Command claimed that "our goal is to protect Americans and disrupt violent extremist organizations wherever they are," and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned of "more to come," while critics advocated against any more American violence.

President Donald Trump said Thursday that he 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!"

Specifically, according to the New York Times, which spoke with an unnamed US military source, "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 camps in northwest Nigeria's Sokoto State."

The Nigerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs acknowledged cooperation with the United States that "includes the exchange of intelligence, strategic coordination, and other forms of support."

However, Nigerian Foreign Minister Yusuf Maitama Tuggar also countered the Trump administration's framing of the airstrikes as part of a battle against a "Christian genocide."

The minister stressed during a Friday appearance on CNN that "terrorism in Nigeria is not a religious conflict; it is a regional security threat."

The Associated Press spoke with residents of Jabo, a village in Sokoto, about the confusion and panic spurred by the strikes:

They... said the village had never been attacked by armed gangs as part of the violence the US says is widespread, though such attacks regularly occur in neighboring villages.

"As it approached our area, the heat became intense," recalled Abubakar Sani, who lives just a few houses from the scene of the explosion.

"Our rooms began to shake, and then fire broke out," he told AP. "The Nigerian government should take appropriate measures to protect us as citizens. We have never experienced anything like this before."

Jennifer Kavanagh, director of military analysis at Defense Priorities, a US think tank that that promotes restraint, and diplomacy, said in a statement that "the US action taken in Nigeria while Americans celebrated the Christmas holiday is an unnecessary and unjustified use of US military force that violates Mr. Trump's promises to his supporters to put American interests first and avoid risky and wasteful military campaigns abroad."

As Common Dreams reported after the strikes, despite dubbing himself the "most anti-war president in history" and even seeking a Nobel Peace Prize, Trump has now bombed not only Nigeria but also Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen, plus alleged drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, since the start of his first term in 2017.

"Airstrikes in Nigeria will not make Americans safer, no matter the target," Kavanagh argued. "There are no real US interests at stake in Nigeria, a country that is an ocean and over 5,000 miles away. The country is home to a long-running insurgency, but violence and unrest in Nigeria pose no threat to the US homeland or national security interests abroad. Furthermore, despite Mr. Trump's claims, there is no evidence that Christians are targeted by Nigeria's extremist groups at a rate higher than any other religious or ethnic group in the country. Killings of civilians, to the extent they occur, are indiscriminate."

As CNN reported:

"Yes, these (extremist) groups have sadly killed many Christians. However, they have also massacred tens of thousands of Muslims," said Bulama Bukarti, a Nigerian human rights advocate specializing in security and development.

He added that attacks in public spaces disproportionately harm Muslims, as these radical groups operate in predominantly Muslim states...

Out of more than 20,400 civilians killed in attacks between January 2020 and September 2025, 317 deaths were from attacks targeting Christians while 417 were from attacks targeting Muslims, according to crisis monitoring group Armed Conflict Location & Event Data.

Kavanagh noted that "the United States has been conducting strikes on ISIS and other terrorist group targets in Africa now for over two decades and the number and power of militant groups on the continent has only increased. The whack-a-mole strategy is ineffective at controlling insurgencies or eliminating terrorist groups. It also needlessly expends scarce US resources and does so at a time when Americans are concerned about economic challenges at home."

"Chasing terrorist groups around the globe is the opposite of the 'America First' foreign policy voters expected when they returned Mr. Trump to the White House," she added. "To keep his commitment, he must make the attack in Nigeria a one-off."

Medea Benjamin of the anti-war group CodePink similarly says in a video shared on social media Friday: "We have to ask, is this Donald Trump's idea of America First? The American people do not want to be dragged into yet another conflict, and this was done without congressional approval, without public debate, without any transparency."

Former libertarian US Congressman Justin Amash (R-Mich.) has also emphasized in multiple social media posts since Thursday that "to carry out an offensive military action in another country, the approval the president of the United States needs is from the Congress of the United States, not from a foreign government."

Brian Finucane, a senior adviser at the International Crisis Group and nonresident senior fellow at the New York University School of Law, suggested congressional action, saying that it "seems like the Armed Services committees ought to do some oversight regarding the expensive and pointless Christmas fireworks display in Nigeria."

Meanwhile, progressive campaigner Melissa Byrne asked, "What kind of Christianity murders people on Christmas?"