Video released by U.S. Command shows missiles launched from a U.S. warship during strikes against Islamic State targets in Nigeria on Dec. 25, 2025. (Photo: X/DepartmentofWar)
The US military has conducted airstrikes against Islamic State (IS) militants in Nigeria over the violent “targeting” of Christians.
The strikes were carried out in northwestern Nigeria on Christmas Day.
Christmas has become a tense time of year for the Christians across Nigeria’s central and northern states due to the threat of attacks by Islamist extremists.
The New York Times reports that the strikes targeted two IS camps in Sokoto State. The strikes involved missiles and drones, and were based on shared intelligence. The US military’s Africa Command said on X that they took place “in coordination with Nigerian authorities”.
President Donald Trump publicly announced the operation on his Truth Social platform and said it was a response to ongoing attacks by IS-linked militants against Christian communities in Nigeria.
“Tonight, at my direction as commander in chief, the United States launched a powerful and deadly strike against Isis terrorist scum in north-west Nigeria, who have been targeting and viciously killing – primarily innocent Christian – at levels not seen for many years, and even centuries,” he said.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth commented on the strikes on X, saying, “The President was clear last month: the killing of innocent Christians in Nigeria (and elsewhere) must end. The Department of War is always ready, so ISIS found out tonight — on Christmas.”
He added that there was “more to come”.
The Nigerian government and authorities have long been accused of inaction over the years-long targeting of Christians.
Some voices have tried to play down the targeting of Christians or frame them as herder-farmer clashes. Christian religious liberty groups disagree with this assessment.
Estimates vary but Open Doors believes that this year alone 3,100 Christians have been killed for their faith in Nigeria, out of 4,476 Christians globally. Nigeria is currently ranked 7th on the Open Doors World Watch List of the 50 worst countries for persecution of Christians. According to Open Doors, Nigeria also leads the world in the numbers of Christians abducted for their faith, with 2,830 out of 3,775 worldwide.
The Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law, which monitors violence against Christians in Nigeria, thinks that as many as 7,000 Christians may have been killed in the country this year.
In the last two months of the year, hundreds of staff and pupils were abducted from a Catholic school. They were eventually freed – or escaped – with the last few being released just before Christmas. Dozens more Christians have been kidnapped in recent months from Nigerian churches.
In recent months, Trump had warned that the US was prepared to take military action over the plight of the Nigeria’s Christians, and last month the US redesignated it a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) – having been removed from the CPC list by the previous administration.
At the time, Trump said, “Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria. Thousands of Christians are being killed. Radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter.”
Open Doors was among the Christian groups to welcome Nigeria’s return to the list.
“For too long the specific targeting of Christian communities have continued with impunity,” a spokesperson for the organisation said.
“The move by the Trump administration might not be the immediate fix of the complex root causes of the problem.
“However, it is an acknowledgement that the problem is large-scale and serious, and an important symbolic recognition to the tremendous suffering of the most vulnerable in parts of Nigeria.”
Mervyn Thomas, founder president of Christian Solidarity Worldwide, warned in November that Nigerian Christians are “under increasing siege” and that the violence is often being carried out with impunity. He said there was an “urgent need for the government of Nigeria to respond decisively to both terrorist violence and systematic repression”.
