NIGERIA - Donald Trump has threatened military action against Nigeria if the government continues to allow terrorists to kill Christians.
The African country is being roiled by internal violence, including a jihadist insurgency spearheaded by extremist group Boko Haram in the northeast since 2009.
Amid the various forms of bloodletting around the country - including ethnic rivalry and banditry - the Islamist militants have been slaughtering Christians as well as Muslims they regard as ‘apostates’ for failing to comport with their brand of Islam.
There has also been a separate onslaught by Fulani Muslim tribesmen against mainly Christian farming communities, a protracted crisis linked to a tangle of issues like religion, ethnicity and a scramble over the dwindling supply of arable land.
Trump has already designated Nigeria a ‘country of particular concern,’ but he took his condemnation of the situation in the country even further on Saturday, warning that the United States may strike Nigeria if the horrendous murders continue.
‘‘If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the USA will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria and may very well go into that now-disgraced country ‘guns-a-blazing’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities,’’ he wrote on X.
‘‘I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action,’’ the president declared, noting that any attack would be ‘fast, vicious and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our cherished Christians.’’
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth echoed the sentiment, as he announced his department is preparing for action.
‘‘The killing of innocent Christians in Nigeria - and anywhere, must end immediately,’’ he wrote on social media.
USA President Donald Trump. (Pic: PBS)