US Struck ISIS Targets in Nigeria on Christmas
(More than) 12 Tomahawks a-bombing.
AP (“Trump says US struck Islamic State targets in Nigeria after group targeted Christians“):
President Donald Trump said Thursday that the U.S. launched a “powerful and deadly” strike against Islamic State forces in Nigeria, after spending weeks accusing the West African country’s government of failing to rein in the persecution of Christians.
In a Christmas evening post on his social media site, Trump did not provide details or mention the extent of the damage caused by the strikes in Sokoto state.
A Defense Department official, who insisted on anonymity to discuss details not made public, said the U.S. worked with Nigeria to carry out the strikes, and that they’d been approved by that country’s government.
Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the cooperation included exchange of intelligence and strategic coordination in ways “consistent with international law, mutual respect for sovereignty and shared commitments to regional and global security.”
Trump said the airstrikes were launched against Islamic State militants “who have been targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians.” Residents and security analysts have said Nigeria’s security crisis affects both Christians, predominant in the south, and Muslims, who are the majority in the north.
“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,” Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
Nigeria is battling multiple armed groups, including at least two affiliated with the Islamic State — an offshoot of the Boko Haram extremist group known as the Islamic State West Africa Province in the northeast, and the less-known Lakurawa group prominent in the northwestern states like Sokoto where the gangs use large swathes of forests connecting states as hideouts.
Security analysts said the target of the U.S. strikes could be the Lakurawa group, which in the last year has increasingly become lethal in the region, often targeting remote communities and security forces.
[…]
Trump said the U.S. defense officials had “executed numerous perfect strikes, as only the United States is capable of doing” and added that “our Country will not allow Radical Islamic Terrorism to prosper.”
Nigeria’s population of 220 million is split almost equally between Christians and Muslims. The country has long faced insecurity from various fronts including the Boko Haram extremist group, which seeks to establish its radical interpretation of Islamic law and has also targeted Muslims it deems not Muslim enough.
But attacks in Nigeria often have varying motives. There are religiously motivated ones targeting both Christians and Muslims, clashes between farmers and herders over dwindling resources, communal rivalries, secessionist groups and ethnic clashes.
[…]
Trump has nonetheless kept up the pressure as Nigeria faced a series of attacks on schools and churches in violence that experts and residents say targets both Christians and Muslims.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted Thursday night on X: “The President was clear last month: the killing of innocent Christians in Nigeria (and elsewhere) must end.”
Hegseth said that U.S. military forces are “always ready, so ISIS found out tonight — on Christmas” and added, “More to come…Grateful for Nigerian government support & cooperation” before signing off, “Merry Christmas!”
NYT (“U.S. Strikes ISIS in Nigeria After Trump Warned of Attacks on Christians“) adds:
The United States launched a number of strikes against the Islamic State in northwestern Nigeria, President Trump announced on Thursday, the latest American military campaign against a nonstate adversary — in this case, Islamic jihadis who the president asserts have been slaughtering Christians.
Mr. Trump said in a post on Truth Social that “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!”
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, according to a U.S. military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters. The operation was done in coordination with the Nigerian military, the official said.
In a statement, U.S. Africa Command said its initial assessment concluded that “multiple” ISIS terrorists were killed in the strike.
“U.S. Africa Command is working with our Nigerian and regional partners to increase counter terrorism cooperation efforts related to ongoing violence and threats against innocent lives,” Gen. Dagvin Anderson, the commander of U.S. Africa Command, said in a statement. “Our goal is to protect Americans and disrupt violent extremist organizations wherever they are.”
The attack occurred in a region along the border with Niger, where a branch of ISIS called the Islamic State-Sahel has been attacking both government forces and civilians, according to Caleb Weiss, a counterterrorism analyst and editor with FDD’s Long War Journal.
[…]
U.S. Africa Command, responding to Mr. Trump’s orders, in November drew up options for targeting insurgents in Nigeria and forwarded them to the Pentagon and the White House. The options included airstrikes on the few known compounds in northern Nigeria inhabited by militant groups, officials said.
But even as the plans were being drawn up, American military officials said it was doubtful they would have much long-term impact because of the entrenched nature of the conflict.
The violence in the northwest region, where the strikes occurred, is driven in large part by armed bandits and gangs kidnapping for ransom. The insurgency is concentrated in the northeast, where jihadist groups like the notorious Boko Haram and its now more powerful splinter, the Islamic State West Africa Province, an affiliate of the Islamic State group, have killed tens of thousands of civilians over the past decade.
Nigeria is not officially at war, but more people are killed there than in most war-torn countries. More than 12,000 people were killed by various violent groups this year alone, according to Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, a conflict monitoring group.
Nigeria has struggled with governance and internal security since gaining independence from the UK in 1960. This isn’t surprising, given that the colony was cobbled together from several kingdoms and tribal groups of different religions, ethnicities, and languages and handed off intact for the locals to govern.
Regardless, the government lacks the capacity to deal with the disparate terrorist and transnational criminal organizations wreaking havoc on the country and the United States and other external powers have only limited interest in the country. So, we’re in essentially the same position Israel finds itself in, periodically “mowing the grass” to set adversaries back without any prospect of long-term solutions.
Why these strikes happened on Christmas Day is unclear. Maybe it was purely symbolic: protecting Christians on the day celebrating the birth of the religion’s namesake. Or maybe there was intelligence of impending actions targeting Christians on Christmas.
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And this still doesn’t get him the Nobel Peace Prize?
What does he have to do? Nuke a country?
The problem with the current administration (well, one of them) is that it is equally possible that Trump just wanted to blow up some bad guys and then repeat the Christian nationalist rhetoric that he is being fed.
I think this is just firming up his support among evangelicals. It is occurring at the same time that he granted federal workers, a group he largely seems to dislike/hate, a free five day weekend showing he supports celebrating Christmas. As we saw during the Iraq War evangelicals largely support torture and abusing they perceive as non-believers or those not in their political tribe but even some evangelicals have been concerned about the harsh treatment of immigrants. Some have remembered that Christ cared about the weak, poor and the homeless. Killing a bunch of bad guy Muslims will bring back some lost support. (As much as many people want to think Trump is stupid he really does understand his supporters/base.)
Steve
Looks like we’re going to completely defeat ISIS. Again.
Even GW Bush was wise enough not to couch his actions in overtly religious terms (I don’t usually cut him any slack, but the term crusade was undoubtedly used more in a generic way, rather than specifically wanting to retake the Holy Land).
By all reports, the Navy is going through Tomahawks at well above the replacement rate. Raytheon is the only manufacturer of the Navy’s version, and has indicated that increasing the build rate would take years to implement. There have been recent leaks about a Pentagon war-gaming exercise to defend Taiwan against a Chinese attack, with China winning all of the different scenarios. I wonder how many of those hinged on “Well, we ran out of munitions after two weeks.”