U.S. president says military operations targeted ISIS-linked militants and helped halt attacks on Christian communities, while vowing to continue global counterterrorism efforts…….
United States President Donald Trump has claimed that recent US military strikes in Nigeria played a major role in reducing attacks on Christian communities, saying the operation dealt a significant blow to terrorist groups operating in the country.
Speaking during an event in Washington on Friday, Trump said the strikes targeted militant leaders and disrupted their ability to carry out further attacks.
“As you know, we recently struck Nigeria and largely ended the slaughter of great Christian populations,” Trump said.
He alleged that thousands of Christians, including women, children and the elderly, had been killed by the terrorists before the military operation.
“They have a great Christian population. They were being butchered… Thousands and thousands of people were being killed, children, women, old people, just being slaughtered, hacked to death,” he said.
According to Trump, the strikes sent a strong message to the militants, discouraging them from launching additional attacks.
“They know that if they go further, the attack will be far greater, and they don’t want to really get involved anymore so much,” he said.
The US president also claimed that the operation eliminated several top commanders of the terrorist group.
“We hit them very hard. We knocked out their leader. We knocked out their second leader and their third leader,” he stated.
Drawing a comparison with the United States’ military posture toward Iran, Trump said both situations were driven by national security concerns.
“It sounds a little bit like Iran, actually. It’s all about a different cause that we have to do because we cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon,” he said.
Trump further maintained that his administration remains committed to protecting Christians around the world by aggressively targeting terrorist organisations.
“I’m saving Christians throughout the world, even though we are not in those various countries where you read about this,” he said.
He added that the US would continue to pursue terrorist groups wherever they operate.
“We know where they are. We hunt them down, and we take them out. They go into a village and they just kill everybody. It’s like crazy,” Trump said.
The US president also warned against what he described as growing threats to religious freedom, claiming that extremists seek to undermine religious institutions.
The remarks come months after the United States launched coordinated airstrikes against ISIS-linked fighters in northwestern Sokoto State in December 2025.
In May, Nigeria’s Defence Headquarters announced that more than 20 ISIS/ISWAP fighters were killed during joint US-Nigeria air operations in Metele, Borno State.
The military also disclosed in June that Nigerian forces, working alongside the United States Africa Command (USAFRICOM), killed 21 ISWAP fighters in an airstrike carried out in Arege, Kukawa Local Government Area of Borno State.
