US bombs Islamic State positions in northern Nigeria on Christmas Eve

Girona"It's not a mistake; Donald Trump has bombarded Christmas Day because it's an important date for Christians and because it's a way to get people talking about him," explains Silas Jonathan, a disinformation expert at the Center for Journalism, Innovation and Development (CJID). US President Donald Trump, announced this Thursday in a statement Published on Truth, his social network, the United States launched a "powerful and deadly" attack against Islamic State camps in Nigeria on Christmas Eve.

The US Africa Command Center reported that the attack took place in Sokoto State, in northwestern Nigeria. Trump justified the bombing by claiming that the Islamic State (ISIS) "has been attacking Christians consecutively at levels not seen in years" and wished "a Merry Christmas to all, including the terrorists killed."

Nigerian Defense Minister Yusuf Tuggar stated this Friday on the local television channel ChannelsTV that Nigeria "had provided information" to Washington. Tuggar also said that he spoke by phone with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio "for 19 minutes," just "five minutes before the attack." According to Tuggar, Nigerian President Bola Tinubu had given the "green light" to the bombings and did not rule out the possibility of them being repeated.

The background of the attack

Over the past few months, Trump has launched a relentless communications campaign to claim and justify that Christians face "genocide" in the West African country. "I am a Christian and I live in northern Nigeria, and I don't feel threatened," explains Silas Jonathan in a phone call from Plateau State, in the North Central region of the African nation. "A genocide is what happened in Rwanda or during World War II," says Silas.

While Trump continues with his narrative of "persecution and genocide against Christians," Nigerians themselves, like Silas, point out that this is not a religious conflict but rather a conflict between nomads who want to feed their cattle and farmers. "The attacks are most frequent during harvest time, around mid-August, when the fields are greenest, which is when there is the most food for the livestock," Silas notes. According to the disinformation expert, Trump's aim is to become "the protector and savior of Nigerians" and to gain the approval of "Christian communities in the south of the country." Tuggar even confirmed in an interview on CNN that "terrorism in Nigeria is not a religious conflict but a regional threat." He added, "Security in Nigeria is inseparable from security throughout the region." Neither diplomatic mission specified how the attacks unfolded, but both confirmed cooperation between the two states on this matter. "of intelligence and strategic coordination."

In his words, Tuggar refers to the security problem the region is experiencing due to the expansion of jihadist terrorism in the Sahel, which has already begun to impact the northern Gulf of Guinea countries such as Benin, Togo, and northern Nigeria. The Nigerian state of Sokoto borders southern Niger, a country that has been fighting terrorism for a decade without success so far.

It should be noted that this region is the base of operations for the jihadist group Islamic State Sahel Province (ISSP), which attacks both Muslims and Christians. "Notice that most of the kidnappings and attacks are in the northwestern region of Nigeria, where the vast majority of the population is Muslim," Silas explains. In fact, this Thursday, at least seven people died and 35 were injured in a suspected suicide attack at a mosque in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State in Nigeria.

Only 50 attacks against Christians

Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and one of the continent's most influential economic and diplomatic centers. It is also the continent's largest oil exporter and one of Spain's main suppliers of gas and oil. Currently, it chairs the Economic Commission for West African States (ECOWAS), which is experiencing a regional crisis following the withdrawal of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso from the coalition to form the Alliance of Sahel States—a blow to Nigerian President Bola Tinubou, who seeks to maintain leadership in the region. However, the last two months have seen a successful coup in Guinea-Bissau and a failed one in Benin, where Tinubou deployed ECOWAS military forces with French intelligence support. In 2019, US special forces entered the African nation to rescue an American kidnapped in neighboring Niger, but this is the first time Silas can recall a military intervention of this magnitude in the country. According to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), of the 1,923 documented attacks against civilians in Nigeria this year, only fifty were against Christians. Violence in Nigeria is linked to criminal gangs and the historical conflict between farmers and herders over access to land. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has expanded the list of countries whose citizens are banned from traveling to the United States to 39, and has partially restricted entry to Nigeria. "Donald Trump wants to curry favor with Christians," Silas concludes.