Adebayo Adenrele
The President of the United States of America, Donald Trump has ordered the US army to strikes against militants linked to the Islamic State group (IS) in Sokoto State, Nigeria, where jihadists have long carried out an insurgency.
Camps run by the group in Sokoto state, which lies on Nigeria’s border with Niger, were hit, with multiple fatalities.
Trump said the Christmas Day strikes were “powerful and deadly” and labelled the group “terrorist scum”, saying it had been “targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians”.
According to the Nigerian Foreign Minister, Yusuf Maitama Tuggar said it was a “joint operation” and had “nothing to do with a particular religion”.
Tuggar said the strikes had been planned “for quite some time” and had used intelligence information provided by Nigeria, hinting on possible future strikes.
Referencing the timing of the strikes, he said they did not have “anything to do with Christmas, it could be any other day – it is to do with attacking terrorists who have been killing Nigerians”.
Recall that the Nigerian government has been fighting a complex network of jihadist groups, which includes Boko Haram and IS-linked splinter groups, for several years.
The Trump administration has previously accused the Nigerian government of failing to protect Christians from jihadist attacks and has claimed a “genocide” is being perpetrated.
Trump has previously labelled Nigeria a “country of particular concern”, a designation used by the US state department that provides for sanctions against countries “engaged in severe violations of religious freedom”.
