Donald Trump has said the US carried out airstrikes against Islamic State militants in north-west Nigeria on Thursday, after spending weeks decrying the group for targeting Christians. Some analysts say the latter’s cell in the state began as a group of herders banding together to fight incursions from bandits, in the absence of state support. “This has led to precision hits on terrorist targets in Nigeria by air strikes in the North West,” the ministry said in a post on X. The Nigerian army has attributed the suicide bombing in Borno, the centre of a jihadist insurgency for almost two decades, to Boko Haram. Trump, who positioned himself as the “candidate of peace” in 2024, campaigned on the promise of extricating the US from decades of “endless wars”.

Source: The Guardian December 25, 2025 23:54 UTC