Bombing
President Trump announced on Christmas night that the US had bombed Islamic extremists in Nigeria.
Context
Nigeria is divided roughly equally between Christians and Muslims. Violence against Christians has intensified over the last 15 years, often at the hands of extremist groups like the Islamic State-linked Boko Haram.
Since 2009, over 50,000 Christians have been killed in Nigeria; 13,000+ churches and 1,500+ schools destroyed; and 1.3M+ Christians forced to flee for fear of religious persecution, according to the Nigerian human rights group InterSociety.
Many conservative and Christian groups have alleged the violence constitutes an anti-Christian genocide; others, including in Nigeria, say much of the violence is economically or politically, not religiously, motivated..
Strikes
On Christmas evening, Trump posted on Truth Social, “The United States launched a powerful and deadly strike against ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria…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.”
