United States President Donald Trump has asserted that recent American military strikes in Nigeria effectively curtailed terrorist attacks targeting Christian communities in the country.
Trump made the remarks at a weekend event in Washington, saying US forces had targeted the leadership of the terrorist group responsible for the killings.
“We recently struck Nigeria and largely ended the slaughter of great Christian populations,” Trump said. “They have a great Christian population. They were being butchered. Thousands and thousands of people were being killed, children, women, old people, just being slaughtered, hacked to death.”
The US president said the operation dealt a severe blow to the group’s command structure, neutralising its top three leaders and serving as a deterrent against further violence.
“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. “We hit them very hard. We knocked out their leader. We knocked out their second leader and their third leader.”
Trump drew a parallel between the Nigeria operation and recent US military action against Iran, framing both as responses to critical security threats.
“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,” he said.
The president also cast the strikes as part of a broader commitment by his administration to protect Christians globally, vowing to continue pursuing terrorist groups with force.
“I’m saving Christians throughout the world, even though we are not in those various countries where you read about this,” Trump said. “I’m saving them by hitting these terrorists very violently and very hard — by the greatest weapons on earth, taking them out. We know where they are. We hunt them down, and we take them out.”
Trump also issued a warning about what he described as threats to religious freedom, alleging that extremist and communist forces were working to suppress religion.
“They will close your churches in this country. They go communist, and they’re trying to. They will kill your people — they want to end religion,” he added.
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