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nigeria
Nigerian Village Bombed by Trump Has 'No Known History' of Anti-Christian Terrorism, Locals Say
“Portraying Nigeria’s security challenges as a targeted campaign against a single religious group is a gross misrepresentation of reality,” said Nigeria's information minister.
Dec 27, 2025
When President Donald Trump launched a series of airstrikes in Nigeria on Christmas, he described it as an attack against "ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria who have been targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians."
But locals in a town that was hit during the strike say terrorism has never been a problem for them. On Friday, CNN published a report based on interviews with several residents of Jabo, which was hit by a US missile during Thursday's attack, which landed just feet away from the town's only hospital.
The rural town of Jabo is part of the Sokoto state in northwestern Nigeria, which the Trump administration and the Nigerian government said was hit during the strike.
Both sides have said militants were killed during the attack, but have not specified their identities or the number of casualties.
Kabir Adamu, a security analyst from Beacon Security and Intelligence in Abuja, told Al Jazeera that the likely targets are members of “Lakurawa,” a recently formed offshoot of ISIS.
But the Trump administration's explanation that their home is at the center of a "Christian genocide" left many residents of Jabo confused. As CNN reported:
While parts of Sokoto face challenges with banditry, kidnappings and attacks by armed groups including Lakurawa–which Nigeria classifies as a terrorist organization due to suspected affiliations with [the] Islamic State–villagers say Jabo is not known for terrorist activity and that local Christians coexist peacefully with the Muslim majority.
Bashar Isah Jabo, a lawmaker who represents the town and surrounding areas in Nigeria's parliament, described the village to CNN as “a peaceful community” that has “no known history of ISIS, Lakurawa, or any other terrorist groups operating in the area.”
While the town is predominantly Muslim, resident Suleiman Kagara, told reporters: "We see Christians as our brothers. We don’t have religious conflicts, so we weren’t expecting this."
Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation with more than 237 million people, has a long history of violence between Christians and Muslims, with each making up about half the population.
However, Nigerian officials have disputed claims by Republican leaders—including US Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas)—who have claimed that the government is “ignoring and even facilitating the mass murder of Christians.”
The senator recently claimed, without citing a source for the figures, that "since 2009, over 50,000 Christians in Nigeria have been massacred, and over 18,000 churches and 2,000 Christian schools have been destroyed" by the Islamist group Boko Haram.
Cruz is correct that many Christians have been killed by Boko Haram. But according to reports by the US-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project and the Council on Foreign Relations, the majority of the approximately 53,000 civilians killed by the group since 2009 have been Muslim.
Moreover, the areas where Boko Haram is most active are in northeastern Nigeria, far away from where Trump's strikes were conducted. Attacks on Christians cited in October by Cruz, meanwhile, have been in Nigeria's Middle Belt region, which is separate from violence in the north.
The Nigerian government has pushed back on what they have called an "oversimplified" narrative coming out of the White House and from figures in US media, like HBO host Bill Maher, who has echoed Cruz's overwrought claims of "Christian genocide."
“Portraying Nigeria’s security challenges as a targeted campaign against a single religious group is a gross misrepresentation of reality,” said Nigerian information minister Mohammed Idris Malagi. “While Nigeria, like many countries, has faced security challenges, including acts of terrorism perpetrated by criminals, couching the situation as a deliberate, systematic attack on Christians is inaccurate and harmful. It oversimplifies a complex, multifaceted security environment and plays into the hands of terrorists and criminals who seek to divide Nigerians along religious or ethnic lines."
Anthea Butler, a religious scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, has criticized the Trump administration's attempts to turn the complex situation in Nigeria into a "holy war."
"This theme of persecution of Christians is a very politically charged, and actually religiously charged, theme for evangelicals across the world. And when you say that Christians are being persecuted, that’s a thing," she told Democracy Now! in November. "It fits this sort of savior narrative of this American sort of ethos right now that is seeing itself going into countries for a moral war, a moral suasion, as it were, to do something to help other people."
Nigeria also notably produces more crude oil than any other country in Africa. Trump has explicitly argued that the US should carry out regime change in Venezuela for the purposes of "taking back" that nation's oil.
Butler has doubted the sincerity of Trump's concern for the nation's Christians due to his administration's denial of entry for Nigerian refugees, as well as virtually every other refugee group, with the exception of white South Africans.
She said: "I think this is sort of disingenuous to say you’re going to go in and save Christianity in Nigeria, when you have, you know, banned Nigerians from coming to this country."
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Critics Argue Striking Nigeria Won't 'Make Americans Safer' as US Warns of 'More to Come'
"Seems like the Armed Services committees ought to do some oversight regarding the expensive and pointless Christmas fireworks display in Nigeria," said one legal expert.
Dec 26, 2025
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.
The Dove
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— Brian Finucane (@bcfinucane.bsky.social) December 25, 2025 at 9:06 PM
"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?"
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US Launches Christmas Strikes on Nigeria—the 9th Country Bombed by Trump
Trump—who calls himself "the most anti-war president in history"—has now bombed more countries than any president in history.
Dec 25, 2025
President Donald Trump—the self-described "most anti-war president in history"—has now ordered the bombing of more countries than any president in history as US forces carried out Christmas day strikes on what the White House claimed were Islamic State militants killing Christians in Nigeria.
"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 Thursday in a post on his Truth Social network.
"I have previously warned these Terrorists that if they did not stop the slaughtering of Christians, there would be hell to pay, and tonight, there was," the president continued. "The Department of War executed numerous perfect strikes, as only the United States is capable of doing."
"Under my leadership, our Country will not allow Radical Islamic Terrorism to prosper," Trump 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."
A US Department of Defense official speaking on condition of anonymity told the Associated Press that the United States worked with Nigeria to conduct the bombing, and that the government of Nigerian President Bola Tinubu—who is a Muslim—approved the attacks.
It was not immediately known how many people were killed or wounded in the strikes, or whether there are any civilian casualties.
The Nigerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that “terrorist violence in any form, whether directed at Christians, Muslims, or other communities, remains an affront to Nigeria’s values and to international peace and security."
The US bombings followed a threat last month by Trump to attack Nigeria with “guns-a-blazing" if the country's government did not curb attacks on Christians.
Northwestern Nigeria—including Sokoto, Zamfara, Katsina, and parts of Kaduna State—is suffering a complex security crisis, plagued by armed criminal groups, herder-farmer disputes, and Islamist militants including Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP/ISIS) and Boko Haram. Both Christians and Muslims have been attacked.
Since emerging in Borno State in 2009, Boko Haram has waged war on the Nigerian state—which it regards as apostate—not against any particular religious group. In fact, the majority of its victims have been Muslims.
"According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, more Muslims than Christians have been targeted in recent years," Chloe Atkinson recently wrote for Common Dreams. "Boko Haram has massacred worshipers in mosques, torched markets in Muslim-majority areas, and threatened their own coreligionists."
"The crisis in Nigeria is not a holy war against Christianity."
"It is true that Christian communities in the north-central regions have suffered unimaginable horrors as raids have left villages in ashes, children murdered in their beds, and churches reduced to rubble," she said. "The April massacre in Zike and the June bloodbath in Yelwata are prime examples of the atrocities taking place in Nigeria."
"The crisis in Nigeria is not a holy war against Christianity," Atkinson continued. "Instead, it’s a devastating cocktail of poverty, climate-driven land disputes, and radical ideologies that prey on everyone and not just any distinct group."
"By framing Nigeria’s conflict as an existential threat to Christians alone, Trump is not shining a spotlight on the victims," she added. "Instead, he is weaponizing right-wing conspiracy theories to stoke Islamophobia, the same toxic playbook he used to fuel his ban on Muslims, and which left refugee families shattered at America’s borders."
Former libertarian US Congressman Justin Amash (R-Mich.) noted on X that "there’s no authority for strikes on terrorists in Nigeria or anywhere on Earth," adding that the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF)—which was approved by every member of Congress except then-Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.)—"is only for the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks."
"The War Powers Resolution doesn’t grant any authority beyond the Constitution," Amash added. "Offensive military actions need congressional approval. The Framers of the Constitution divided war powers to protect the American people from war-eager executives. Whether the United States should engage in conflicts across the globe is a decision for the people’s representatives in Congress, not the president."
In addition to Nigeria, Trump—who says he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize—since 2017 has also ordered the bombing of Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen, as well as boats allegedly transporting drugs in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. Trump has also deployed warships and thousands of US troops near Venezuela, which could become the next country attacked by a president who campaigned on a platform of "peace through strength."
That's more than the at least five countries attacked during the tenure of former President George W. Bush or the at least seven nations attacked on orders of then-President Barack Obama during the so-called War on Terror, which killed more than 940,000 people—including at least 432,000 civilians, according to the Costs of War Project at Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs.
Trump continued the war on ISIS in Iraq and Syria started by Obama in 2014. Promising to "bomb the shit out of" ISIS fighters and "take out their families," Trump intensified the US campaign from a war of "attrition" to one of "annihilation," according to his former defense secretary, Gen. James "Mad Dog" Mattis. Thousand of civilians were killed as cities such as Mosul, Iraq and Raqqa, Syria were flattened.
Trump declared victory over ISIS in 2018—and again the following year.
Some social media users suggested Trump's "warmongering" is an attempt to distract from the Epstein files scandal and alleged administration cover-up.
"Bombing Nigeria won’t make us forget about the Epstein files," said one X user.
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