The United States launched a number of strikes against the Islamic State group in northwestern Nigeria, President Donald Trump announced Thursday, the latest U.S. military campaign against a nonstate adversary — in this case, Islamic jihadis who the president asserts have been slaughtering Christians.

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 Islamic State 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” Islamic State 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 the Islamic State group 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.

The U.S. operation inside Africa’s most populous nation followed months of growing allegations by Christian evangelical groups and senior Republicans that Christians were being targeted in widespread violence.

An insurgency there has gone on for more than a decade, killing thousands of Christians and Muslims across sectarian lines. Nigerian authorities have rejected allegations of a Christian genocide, noting that the web of violent armed groups, with different motives and spread across the country, kills as many Muslims as Christians.

However, Nigerian officials have stepped up engagement with the U.S. in recent weeks, after Trump ordered the Defense Department in November to prepare to intervene militarily in Nigeria to protect Christians.

—

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Helene Cooper, Saikou Jammeh and Eric Schmitt/Eric Lee
c. 2025 The New York Times Company