The U.S. is planning to send 200 American troops to help fight terrorism in Nigeria, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The contingent will reinforce a small group of U.S. military personnel already on the ground there. Officials say the U.S. troops will not be involved directly in combat, but their mission is to train Nigeria’s military to fight Islamic militants.
“The terrorist activity in West Africa—and Nigeria specifically—is something we’re incredibly concerned with,” a spokesperson for U.S. Africa Command told the Journal. “We want to partner with capable and willing partners that are able to address these shared security concerns.”
***US Strikes Islamic State Group in Nigeria After Terror Attacks on Christians
President Trump has accused Nigeria’s government of failing to protect Christians from terror attacks. Last November, he warned on Truth Social that the U.S. military was ready to go into Nigeria “guns-a-blazing,” arguing the country’s government was allowing Christians to be slaughtered.
He later told a reporter, “They’re killing record numbers of Christians in Nigeria, and they have other countries very bad, also. You know that. That part of the world is very bad. They’re killing the Christians and killing them in very large numbers. We’re not going to allow that to happen.”
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Nigeria’s president rejects those accusations and says both Christians and Muslims suffer at the hands of terrorist groups.
But the persecution watchdog Open Doors lists Nigeria as the seventh most dangerous country in the world for Christians.
Last year, Republican Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey, who has traveled to many dangerous areas in Nigeria, explained, “There has been an exponential increase in attacks on Christians and some Muslims, but Christians in particular, Protestants, evangelicals, Catholics, they’re firebombing their churches.”
In January of this year, gunmen abducted over 160 worshippers from 3 churches in Kaduna state in Nigeria from the following groups:
- The Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA),
- the Cherubim and Seraphim denomination,
- and a Catholic church.
And last week, Islamic State jihadists murdered 162 people in attacks on 2 villages in the state of Kwara, Nigeria
Numerous extremist groups are operating throughout Nigeria, but they’re largely jihadist groups like Boko Haram, multiple Islamic State factions, and the Fulani herdsmen, who are Muslims that typically attack Christian farmers and villages to steal their land and water.
Rep. Smith says the Nigerian government has been silent and unresponsive to the crisis. “The Fulani are killing them with absolute impunity. We’ve called on the government in Abuja and the president several times to do what governments do, law enforcement, use the military if you have to, but stop this genocide, and do it now,” he said.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom reports that over 80% of religion-based murders around the world in 2024 occurred in Nigeria.
***Pastor, Wife and Churchgoers Abducted at Gunpoint During Sunday Service in Nigeria
