US warns of more Nigeria strikes as Abuja talks of ‘joint ongoing operations’

Key Highlights

• Merry Christmas!”Nigeria’s foreign minister, Yusuf Tuggar, said on Friday that the US strikes, which came after Trump had accused Nigeria’s government of failing to stop Christians being killed in the country, were “part of joint ongoing operations”. Nigeria is officially secular and its population is almost evenly split between Muslims (53%) and Christians (45%).
• Violence against Christians has drawn attention from the religious right in the US, which has framed it as persecution.
• Nigeria’s government has pointed out that armed groups target Christians and Muslims. Nigeria provided the intelligence for the airstrikes in Sokoto state, Tuggar told the country’s Channels Television on Friday.
• He said he had spoken to his US counterpart, Marco Rubio, for 19 minutes, then called the Nigerian president, Bola Tinubu, to get his go-ahead, before speaking to Rubio again for another five minutes.“We have been working closely with the Americans,” Tuggar said.
• “This is what we’ve always been hoping for, to work with the Americans, to work with other countries, to combat terrorism, to stop the death of innocent Nigerians … It’s a collaborative effort.”The US military’s Africa Command (Africom) said the strikes in Sokoto state had been carried out in coordination with Nigerian authorities.