Trump: We gave the jihadist in Nigeria a Christmas present and completely and suddenly destroyed their positions

US President Donald Trump said in an interview broadcasted on Friday that the strikes he ordered against Nigerian jihadists, as he accuses them with persecuting Christians, have completely destroyed their camps.

Trump told Politico: “They were going to do it before, but I said, No, let’s give them a Christmas present… They didn’t expect it, but we hit them hard… All their camps were destroyed”.

Nigeria on Friday expected more strikes against jihadist groups after those carried out by US forces in the north of the country on Christmas Day.

Asked about the possibility of further strikes, Foreign Minister Youssef Tojar told local television station Channels TV, “It’s an ongoing process, and we’re working with the United States, and we’re cooperating with other countries”.

“It was Nigeria that provided the intelligence to Washington,” he said, adding that he had spoken by phone with his US counterpart, Marco Rubio.

“We spoke twice… We talked for 19 minutes before the attack, and then we talked again for five minutes before it started”.

The Nigerian foreign minister confirmed that he had had long discussions with Marco Rubio and that President Bola Tinubu had given his approval to the US strikes.

“Nigerian authorities continue to engage in structured security cooperation with international partners, including the United States, to counter the ongoing threat of terrorism and violent extremism,” the Nigerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement at dawn on Friday.

But local residents were shocked by the strikes in remote villages in Sokoto state, which borders Niger, which is ruled by a military junta.

Foreign Minister Yusuf Tojar stressed that Nigeria’s approach to counter-terrorism is not influenced by the religion of the victims, “whether they are Muslims or Christians, regardless of the type of terrorism”.

The Nigerian government and independent analysts refuse to talk of religious persecution in Nigeria, a title that continues to be raised by the right in the United States and Europe and Nigerian separatists who continue to wield influence in Washington.

The US Department of Defense released a video of a few seconds that appeared to show a missile being fired at night from a US-flagged warship.

The US Africa Command announced in a post on X that it had launched a raid “at the request of the Nigerian authorities in Sokoto State that resulted in the death of a number of Islamic State terrorists”.

The US Department of Defense confirmed Friday that the strikes were carried out with the approval of Lagos.

“The War Department has cooperated with the Nigerian government to carry out these strikes… The Nigerian government has approved these strikes,” he said.

The US strikes in Nigeria are the first of their kind under Trump, and come after he unexpectedly criticized the country in October and November, arguing that Christians there face an existential threat that amounts to “genocide”.

The Nigerian authorities were keen to show their cooperation with the United States in the face of diplomatic pressure, even though “the perpetrators and victims in the northwest are mostly Muslims”.

This year, the United States re-added Nigeria to its list of countries of “particular concern” regarding religious freedom, and reduced the number of visas granted to Nigerians.

The country has long been plagued by violence by Islamist extremist groups in the northeast, as well as armed gangs and bandits looting villages and kidnappings for ransom in the northwest.

The central region is the scene of frequent clashes between Muslim herders and Christian farmers, although violence is often more related to disputes over land, pastures and resources than to religion.

Nigeria is almost evenly divided between the predominantly Christian south and the predominantly Muslim north.

It was the scene of several conflicts that claimed the lives of Christians and Muslims alike.