Over the weekend, President Trump posted a blunt message on social media that said he has ordered the Pentagon to draw up plans for military action in Nigeria to protect victims of Islamic attacks. Describing a "guns-a-blazing attack" to "wipe out" terrorists, Trump said he is instructing the U.S. Department of War to “prepare for possible action” in the African country.
“If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social account.
If a military attack comes, most likely from the air, drones and aircraft would rain munitions on Boko Haram, the Islamic army that has terrorized Nigerians for more two decades and collected a body count of more than 100,000 victims.
Asked about a possible military strike, military analyst Bob Maginnis tells AFN the Pentagon currently has military assets in Niger, the African nation that borders Nigeria to the north.
“We've operated drones out of Niger and a couple other places, some of which are secret,” he advises. “We have Special Forces people doing all sorts of things.”
President Trump will likely say any U.S. attacks are an act of counterterrorism, which is a fact after Boko Haram has performed a genocide against Christians living there, Maginnis adds.
President Trump’s vow to attack the Islamic terrorists came just days after a previous Truth Social post. He announced in that post the U.S. president has now declared Nigeria a “Country of Particular Concern,” a description that is also a formal designation by the U.S. State Department.
Reacting to Trump's public warning, Bronx pastor Dr. William Devlin tells AFN he has traveled to Nigeria numerous times and witnessed the persecution of Christians there.
"I've been working my guts out, along with a lot of other colleagues in Nigeria and in the U.S., to get Nigeria redesignated as a Country of Particular Concern," Devlin says.
Considering the Nigerian government has not done nothing to end years of violence, Devlin says he supports U.S. military action that kills the Islamic terrorists "by any means necessary."
West has ignored Nigeria for decades
With a population of 220 million, Nigeria is the most populated nation on the African continent. The country is evenly split between Muslims and Christians, about 46% each, with other religions making up the rest.
Numerous watchdog groups have pleaded for years for the West to quit ignoring the slaughter of Christians in Nigeria, where Boko Haram militants gun down victims with AK-47s and, more horrifically, cut them apart with machetes.
The attacks on churches include Protestant congregations and Catholic churches, often when church members are holding services, and Boko Haram also attacks rural Christian-majority villages, too.
Horrific and heartbreaking stories from Nigeria have appeared in AFN’s “Persecution” category for many years. Back in a January 2024 story, a year before Trump would take office, the group International Christian Concern complained the Biden administration had failed for three years straight to designate Nigeria as “Country of Particular Concern.”
A year and nine months later, ICC and other groups have now witnessed President Trump take that step and also vow to kill the Islamic terrorists.
"They're killing record numbers of Christians in Nigeria,” Trump, speaking to reporters on Air Force One, said Sunday. “We're not going to allow that to happen.”
