SAEDNEWS: The President of the United States, in an interview with a local radio station, welcomed the alleged attacks on targets in Nigeria and described them as a gift to the terrorist group ISIS in Nigeria.
According to the political news service of Saed News, citing Anadolu, Donald Trump claimed in a Friday interview with WABC radio that tens of thousands of Christians are being killed in Nigeria and that he had warned the Nigerian government about the consequences.
According to IRNA, Trump said, “Yesterday, I suggested we strike them on Christmas. It would be a Christmas gift.”
The former U.S. president said American forces had struck ISIS “hard” in multiple locations, describing the terrorist group as “horrific” and “butchers.”
“They really took a hard hit yesterday. They got a very bad Christmas gift,” he added.
Trump announced on his social media platform, Truth Social, that the U.S. conducted attacks on ISIS targets in northwestern Nigeria on Thursday.
The U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) said the strikes were carried out “at the request of Nigerian authorities” in Sokoto State and “killed several ISIS terrorists.”
Nigeria confirmed on Friday that it would continue cooperating with the United States on security matters to counter the ongoing threat of terrorism and violent extremism.
Earlier, Trump had placed Nigeria on a list of “countries of particular concern,” claiming that Christians in the country faced an “existential threat.” Meanwhile, right-wing political allies, including Senator Ted Cruz, have raised claims of a “Christian massacre,” which experts say are unfounded.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, faces tensions in northern regions along the Sahel, which, according to experts, have led to the deaths of both Muslims and Christians, without a specific focus on religion. Masad Bolus, a former Trump administration official for Arab and African affairs, recently noted that Boko Haram and ISIS have killed more Muslims than Christians.
Covering more than 923,000 square kilometers and home to roughly 230 million people, Nigeria is the continent’s most populous country and the sixth most populous in the world. Approximately 54 percent of the population is Muslim, while nearly half are Protestant or Catholic Christians.
Trump has previously made claims regarding the killings of “white farmers” in South Africa, which Pretoria officials have rejected.
