The United States has carried out strikes against militants associated with the Islamic State group (IS) in northwest Nigeria where militants have attempted to establish a presence.
The US military sources said, the group’s camps in Sokoto state which is on Nigeria’s border with Niger, were attacked, and a “initial assessment” indicated “multiple” fatalities.
US President Donald Trump said, the gang was “terrorist scum” and had been “targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians” during the “deadly” Christmas Day strikes.
Yusuf Maitama Tuggar, the foreign minister of Nigeria, told the British Media BBC that it had “nothing to do with a particular religion” and was a “joint operation”.
Tuggar claimed that Nigerian information had been used “for quite some time” to arrange the strikes. Additionally, he did not rule out more strikes.
He said that the strikes, which occurred late on Thursday, had “nothing to do with Christmas, it could be any other day – it is to do with attacking terrorists who have been killing Nigerians.”
Boko Haram and IS-affiliated groups are among the several jihadist organizations that the Nigerian government has been battling for years, mostly in the northeast, hundreds of miles from Sokoto state.
The Trump administration has previously said that a “genocide” is taking place and accused the Nigerian government of failing to shield Christians from Islamist attacks.
Nigeria has been designated a “country of particular concern” by Trump. The US State Department uses this classification to impose penalties on nations that are “engaged in severe violations of religious freedom”.