The United States military bombed Nigeria on Christmas, reportedly targeting ISIS militants. President Donald Trump claimed the U.S. struck terrorists “who have been targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians, at levels not seen for many years, and even Centuries.”
Nigeria has been plagued by sectarian violence, but that violence hasn’t primarily targeted Christians — and certainly not at historically unprecedented levels. America’s logic here isn’t clear, but the strikes appear driven more by Trump putting on a show for his evangelical base than trying to reduce violence in Nigeria or even advance U.S. national interests.
The strikes appear driven more by Trump putting on a show for his evangelical base than trying to reduce violence in Nigeria.
It’s the first time the U.S. has ever fired missiles into Nigeria, but it’s one of several countries the Trump administration has bombed this year. In 2025, U.S. forces launched more than a thousand strikes against the Houthis in Yemen, more than a hundred in Somalia mostly targeting al-Shabab, dozens against ISIS in Syria, 29 and counting against alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific, plus some strikes targeting Iran’s nuclear program. All of those efforts killed people and damaged things, but none appear to have achieved anything lasting.
Those other strikes are different, though, because they took place in areas hostile to the U.S. Nigeria is a U.S. counterterrorism partner. The Nigerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement acknowledging the U.S. attacks and the ongoing Nigerian-American security partnership, but nothing in the statement indicates Nigeria asked the U.S. to strike. And in contrast to the U.S. emphasis on Christians, the Nigerian foreign ministry’s statement denounces “terrorist violence in any form whether directed at Christians, Muslims, or other communities.”
Either way, it’s not clear what prompted the timing of the strikes. The U.S. campaign in Yemen came after the Houthis fired at shipping in the Red Sea, and the strikes in Syria followed an ISIS-linked attack in the country that killed three Americans, but there hasn’t been a recent attack on Americans or U.S. interests in Nigeria. There have been attacks on Christians in Nigeria this year, including a massacre that killed more than 100, but that was in June, and ISIS wasn’t responsible.
And Christians are hardly the only ones facing violence there. An attack on a mosque in August killed at least 50 people. A suspected suicide bombing on another mosque killed at least five people this week. As Nigerian politician and human rights activist Shehu Sani put it, “The narrative that the evil terrorists only target one faith remains absolutely false and misleading.”
Nevertheless, violence against Christians in Nigeria is a fixation among Republicans, especially right-wing evangelicals who inaccurately claim a “Christian genocide” is happening there. In September, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, introduced a bill “against persecution of Nigerian Christians.” In November, Rep. Riley Moore, R-W.Va., introduced a different resolution “condemning the persecution of Christians in Nigeria.”
Also in November, Trump warned: “If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the U.S.A. will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing.’” This professed concern for persecuted Christians looks absurd in the context of the Trump administration’s policies. For example, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security recently announced the end of Temporary Protected Status for nearly 4,000 people from Myanmar, many of them persecuted Christians. Starting in January 2026, the U.S. government will deport them back to a country run by a military junta that has been bombing churches and treats Christians as one of its domestic enemies. Meanwhile, at Trump’s direction, ICE and the Border Patrol have harassed, imprisoned and deported numerous Latino Christians in the U.S., often without due process. This professed concern for persecuted Christians looks absurd in the context of the Trump administration’s policies. Nigeria has been dealing with attacks from regional jihadist group Boko Haram since 2009 and the global jihadists of ISIS since 2015. The terrorist groups have partnered at times, but also splintered, and the years of multisided fighting involving them, various other groups and the Nigerian government has caused thousands of deaths. The U.S. firing a dozen or so missiles against ISIS in Nigeria won’t solve anything, and there’s no apparent plans for a sustained campaign, let alone the sort of operations that would be necessary to weaken them in ways that could last. But bombing on Christmas did give Donald Trump a chance to tell his base that he’s standing up for Christianity, even as he and many of his Christian supporters, in direct contrast to Jesus’ teachings, openly champion violence, money and cruelty to strangers.
Nicholas Grossman
Nicholas Grossman is a political science professor at the University of Illinois, editor of Arc Digital and the author of "Drones and Terrorism." 
