On Christmas Day, the U.S. carried out a military strike in northwest Nigeria targeting militants linked to the Islamic State group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
President Donald Trump said the action responded to ISIS-affiliated forces \u201cviolently targeting innocent Christians in Nigeria,\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
warning that the U.S. would not allow terrorism to grow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He described the militants as \u201cISIS Terrorist Scum\u201d and called the strikes \u201cpowerful and deadly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The operation drew renewed attention to ongoing violence in Nigeria, where reports say<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cthousands of Christians have been killed and numerous churches destroyed\u201d in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Exact casualty numbers from the strike remain unclear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nigerian officials confirmed it was a joint operation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Brigadier General Samaila Mohammed Uba said it was based on \u201ccredible intelligence\u201d aimed at weakening terrorist groups<\/p>\n\n\n\n
while limiting civilian harm. Foreign Minister Yusuf Maitama Tuggar stressed<\/p>\n\n\n\n
the strike was \u201cnot religiously motivated,\u201d but a security response to terrorism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On Christmas Day, the U.S. carried out a military strike in northwest Nigeria targeting militants linked to the Islamic State group. President Donald Trump said the action responded to ISIS-affiliated forces \u201cviolently targeting innocent Christians in Nigeria,\u201d warning that the U.S. would not allow terrorism to grow. He described the militants as \u201cISIS Terrorist Scum\u201d…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11360,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11359"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11361,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11359\/revisions\/11361"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}