• Trump says US forces hit Islamic State fighters in Sokoto state

• Abuja confirms strikes but rejects claims of a religiously driven conflict

• Analysts warn against reducing Nigeria’s violence to a Christian-Muslim divide

On Thursday evening, US President Donald Trump said on his Truth Social platform that American forces had carried out “powerful and deadly” strikes against Islamic State fighters in Nigeria’s Sokoto state. He said the armed groups had targeted and killed mainly “innocent Christians at levels not seen for many years, and even Centuries!”

Trump presented the operation as the follow-through on an earlier warning to jihadist groups. He said they would pay a heavy price if they did not stop killing Christians, and warned that further strikes would follow if the violence continued.

The US Africa Command (AFRICOM) confirmed that the strikes were conducted “at the request of Nigerian authorities” and said they had killed “multiple Islamic State terrorists.” US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth welcomed the cooperation of the Nigerian government and also referred to the possibility of further operations.

Nigeria’s government confirmed that US strikes had taken place. In a statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the country remained committed to “structured security cooperation” with international partners, including the United States, to address the persistent threat of terrorism and violent extremism.

The Nigerian military said the operation was conducted jointly, based on what it described as credible intelligence, and with the approval of federal authorities. Officials in Abuja said the strikes were part of a strategy to prevent the establishment or expansion of transnational jihadist groups in the country’s northwest, a region already weakened by insecurity.

Disputed religious framing

The sharpest differences lie in how the violence is interpreted. Trump has said Nigerian Christians face an “existential threat” and has used the term “genocide,” a view shared by parts of the US Christian right and some advocacy groups that have long denounced what they describe as systematic religious persecution.

Nigerian authorities, along with many independent analysts, reject this characterization. They stress that violence affects both Muslim and Christian communities, depending on the region and the armed actors involved. Nigeria faces several distinct security crises, including a long-running jihadist insurgency in the northeast, criminal armed groups in the northwest, and recurring clashes between herders and farmers in the central region.

In these latter conflicts, violence is largely linked to access to land, water, and resources, against a backdrop of population growth and climate change, rather than to strictly religious motives.

The location of the strikes has also fueled debate. Sokoto state is predominantly Muslim and is not generally cited as a hotspot of violence against Christians. Local journalists and observers have noted that attacks specifically targeting Christian communities there are rare, calling into question the argument that the intervention was primarily driven by the protection of Christians.

Images circulating on social media show missile debris near villages, although local sources have reported no civilian casualties.

The US intervention comes amid a sensitive political backdrop. In recent months, Washington has re-listed Nigeria as a country of “particular concern” for religious freedom and has tightened visa issuance for Nigerian nationals. Nigeria has also become a mobilizing issue for Donald Trump’s evangelical base, particularly as political deadlines approach.

For Abuja, the challenge is to maintain effective security cooperation against armed groups while avoiding what it sees as an overly simplistic religious framing of Nigeria’s violence, which officials argue does not reflect realities on the ground.

The US strikes in northwestern Nigeria highlight both security alignment between Washington and Abuja and a deep divide over how the violence is understood. While the threat posed by jihadist groups is real, analysts warn that reducing it to a religious conflict risks obscuring the multiple drivers of insecurity and could ultimately complicate stabilization efforts in Africa’s most populous country.