United States President Donald Trump has said recently authorised US missile strikes in Nigeria helped stop the killing of Christians in the country.
Trump made the statement on Friday during an event in Washington.
“As you know, we recently struck Nigeria and largely ended the slaughter of great Christian populations,” he said.
“They have a great Christian population. They were being butchered… butchered. Thousands and thousands of people were being killed, children, women, old people, just being slaughtered, hacked to death.”
Trump claimed the military operation discouraged further terrorist attacks in Nigeria.
“They know that if they go further, the attack will be far greater and that they don’t want to really get involved anymore so much,” he said.
“You know, we hit them very hard. We knocked out their leader. We knocked out their second leader and their third leader.”
The US president compared the operation in Nigeria to America’s military action in Iran.
“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. Can’t let it happen,” he said.
Trump also said his administration remains committed to protecting Christians around the world.
“So I’m saving Christians throughout the world, even though we are not in those various countries where you read about this,” he said.
“But they’d like to make our country just like those countries. That’s where they started. They started right where we are right now.”
Trump added that the US would continue targeting terrorist groups wherever they operate.
“But I’m saving them by hitting these terrorists very violently and very hard. We’re hitting them very hard by the greatest weapons on earth, taking them out,” he said.
“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.”
He also warned against what he described as growing threats to religious freedom.
“They will close your churches in this country. They go communist, and they’re trying to. They will kill your people, and that’s what they’re about. They want to end religion,” he added.
In December 2025, the US carried out multiple airstrikes targeting داعش terrorists in Sokoto State, north-west Nigeria.
In May, Nigeria’s Defence Headquarters announced that over 20 ISIS/ISWAP fighters were killed in joint US-Nigeria airstrikes in Metele, Borno State.
In June, the Nigerian military, working alongside the United States Africa Command, also killed 21 ISWAP fighters during an airstrike in Arege, Kukawa LGA of Borno State.