Following through on a long-standing promise to protect persecuted Christians in Nigeria, President Donald Trump announced on Christmas Day that he had ordered a strike on Islamic State militants in Africa’s most populous nation.
“Tonight, at my direction as Commander in Chief, the United States launched a powerful and deadly strike against ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria,” Trump said in a Truth Social post just before 6:00 p.m. Eastern.
“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 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. 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.”
Donald J. Trump Truth Social 12.25.25 05:59 PM pic.twitter.com/5NxmTqx4sf
— Commentary Donald J. Trump Posts From Truth Social (@TrumpDailyPosts) December 25, 2025
The Islamic State group is one of several Islamic terror organizations involved in an ongoing Christian genocide in Nigeria.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Pentagon officials confirmed that Nigeria’s ruling government approved the strikes and worked with the U.S. military to ensure the operation’s success.
“The President was clear last month: the killing of innocent Christians in Nigeria (and elsewhere) must end,” Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said after the strike.
It remains unclear as of late Thursday what the strike entailed, where it was launched from, where the attacks happened, or how many militants were killed.
Trump has increasingly focused on Christian persecution in the nation of 237 million over the past few months. While Muslims outnumber Christians slightly in Nigeria — roughly 50 percent of the population is Muslim and 45 percent is Christian — much of the land is owned by Christians, which has led to tribal strife.
In particular, the Fulani tribe has become increasingly radical and employs Islamic ideology to justify subjugating and murdering Christians.
Since 2009, an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 Christians have been killed in Nigeria since 2009, not counting kidnappings and other acts of violence. With Trump as president, Republican lawmakers have increasingly pressured the White House to do something about the situation, and Trump has listened.
“If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the U.S.A. will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities,” Trump said in November.
Earlier this month, State Department officials announced that Nigerians involved in persecuting or associated with those who persecute Christians would be denied visas to the United States. Secretary of State Marco Rubio added that “their immediate family members” may be denied entry, too.
“The United States is taking decisive action in response to the mass killings and violence against Christians by radical Islamic terrorists, Fulani ethnic militias, and other violent actors in Nigeria and beyond,” Rubio said in a statement.
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