President Trump on Friday called the U.S. strikes in Nigeria a “Christmas present” for ISIS militants in Nigeria, citing violence against Christians in the African country’s northwest region.
“I said yesterday, ‘Hit them on Christmas Day. It will be a Christmas present.’ We hit ISIS, who are terrible. They are butchers. We really hit them hard in different locations. They really got hit hard yesterday. They got a very bad Christmas present,” Trump told John Catsimatidis on WABC.
The president said that he “told Nigeria, and I told the people around Nigeria, that if you do it, you’re going to get hit.”
U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) announced on Thursday “multiple ISIS terrorists” were killed by the strikes, launched in coordination with Nigerian authorities, in the West African nation.
“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,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social on Thursday. “The Department of War executed numerous perfect strikes, as only the United States is capable of doing.”
Trump in November had labeled the African nation a “country of particular concern” (CPC) because of religious violence, threatening to take military action if the killings continued.
“The President was clear last month: the killing of innocent Christians in Nigeria (and elsewhere) must end,” said War Department Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday. “The @DeptofWar is always ready, so ISIS found out tonight — on Christmas. More to come.”
Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement confirming the strikes that terrorist violence “whether directed at Christians, Muslims, or other communities remains an affront to Nigeria’s values and to international peace and security.”
And in a post on X, the foreign minister also stressed that “terrorism in Nigeria is not a religious conflict; it is a regional security threat,” cautioning against “simplistic labels” in the conflict.