TEHRAN – The United States carried out strikes in northwestern Nigeria on Christmas Day, nearly two months after President Donald Trump warned he might intervene militarily, accusing the West African nation of failing to stop attacks against Christian communities.

The Thursday strikes represent Trump’s newest overseas military action, despite his 2024 campaign pledge to pull the United States out of decades of “endless wars.”

Trump said the strikes were aimed at the ISIL terror group, also known as ISIS and Daesh. “Tonight, at my direction as Commander in Chief, the United States launched a powerful and deadly strike against ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria, who have been targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians, at levels not seen for many years, and even Centuries!” he wrote on Truth Social.

The U.S. military’s Africa Command confirmed the operation took place in Sokoto state in coordination with Nigerian authorities, killing multiple ISIL militants. Nigerian Foreign Minister Yusuf Maitama Tuggar told the BBC it was a “joint operation” and had “nothing to do with a particular religion.”

The Nigerian government argues that armed groups attack both Muslims and Christians, warning that U.S. claims of Christian persecution oversimplify the country’s complex security challenges while overlooking its efforts to protect religious freedom.

Peace and conflict analyst Bulama Bukarti told Al Jazeera that Trump’s characterization of the violence in northwestern Nigeria is a “fundamental misrepresentation of reality on the ground.” He explained that in Sokoto State, where 80 to 90 percent of the population is Muslim, attacks often take the form of suicide bombings in crowded markets, indiscriminately killing both Muslims and Christians. Bukarti added that Nigeria avoided naming ISIL in its confirmation of the strikes because “it is aware that there isn’t a significant ISIS presence in that part of Nigeria.”

Trump’s decision to single out Nigeria appears driven less by foreign policy concerns than by U.S. domestic politics. For years, conservative voices in America have amplified claims that Christians are under relentless attack in Nigeria. In September, Senator Ted Cruz called for sanctions against Nigerian officials he accused of enabling violence against Christian communities. Then, on October 31, after lobbying from Republican lawmakers and Christian advocacy groups, Trump formally designated Nigeria a “Country of Particular Concern” under the U.S. International Religious Freedom Act. Within days, he instructed the Pentagon to begin drawing up military options, warning publicly that he might go in “guns-a-blazing” if Abuja failed to halt what he described as the slaughter of Christians.

Nigeria, however, presents a far more complicated picture. The country is officially secular, with its population split almost evenly between Muslims (53 percent) and Christians (45 percent). While attacks on Christian communities have drawn international headlines, analysts stress that violence in Nigeria is rarely driven by religion alone. Deadly clashes between Muslim herders and Christian farmers are often rooted in disputes over land and water, though ethnic and religious differences sharpen the conflict. Kidnappings of priests, meanwhile, are typically motivated by ransom demands, as clergy are seen as influential figures whose congregations can quickly mobilize funds.

By framing Nigeria’s turmoil primarily as religious persecution, Trump risks deepening sectarian divides and undermining local efforts to present the crisis as a shared national struggle. His intervention reflects less the realities on the ground than the imperatives of American politics: it turns Nigerian suffering into a rallying cry for his evangelical base, reduces complex conflicts into a simplistic narrative of Christian victims versus armed extremists, and threatens to destabilize Nigeria’s fragile religious balance by exporting a divisive lens from Washington.