United States President Donald Trump has asserted that American military operations were instrumental in stopping the widespread killing of Christians in Nigeria, saying decisive action by the US significantly weakened those behind the violence.
Trump made the remarks on Friday during an event in Washington, where he highlighted his administration’s security initiatives and counterterrorism operations in various parts of the world.
Speaking on the situation in Nigeria, the US President claimed that American forces intervened at a critical period when Christian communities were facing sustained attacks, particularly in areas plagued by insurgency and extremist violence.
He said: “As you know, we recently struck Nigeria and largely ended the slaughter of great Christian populations.”
Trump painted a grim picture of the violence before what he described as the US intervention, alleging that thousands of Christians, including vulnerable members of society, had been killed in brutal attacks.
According to him: “They have a great Christian population. They were being butchered, butchered thousands and thousands of people were being killed, children, women, old people, just being slaughtered, hatched to death.”
The US President further claimed that the military operation dealt a major blow to the perpetrators by eliminating key figures within their leadership, thereby reducing their capacity to continue the attacks.
He said: “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. We hit them very hard. We knocked out their leader. We knocked out their second leader and their third leader.”
Trump did not identify the specific groups targeted during the operation or provide details on when the alleged military action took place. Likewise, he did not offer evidence to support his claim that the intervention had effectively brought an end to the killings of Christians in Nigeria.
(Ripples)