United States President Donald Trump has disclosed that the American government coordinated the Sokoto Christmas Day air strikes against Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorists in collaboration with the Nigerian government.
Addressing guests at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, the U.S. President said that the strikes were ordered to ‘decimate the ISIS terrorists who have been slaughtering Christians in that country by the thousands’.
Explaining why he ordered the strikes on Christmas day, he said: ‘On Christmas Day in close coordination with the government of Nigeria, we worked with them, but they’ve got to get tougher.
‘I ordered powerful air strikes to decimate the ISIS terrorists who have been slaughtering Christians in that country by the thousands. It’s not even believable.
‘We hit them so hard they still don’t know what the hell happened. And we were going to do it on a different day. I said no, do it on Christmas. So they understand it.
‘Remember, Christmas was when I ran in 2015. When I announced, I said we’re going to bring back Christmas because the word Christmas was almost gone and people didn’t use Christmas anymore.
‘We brought back the word Christmas. They didn’t want to use it and we’re using it again’.
He added that he gave specific instructions to ensure the operation took place on Christmas Day.
‘I specifically told Pete, I said hit them on Christmas Day, not earlier and not later. And man, did he hit them. So then we hit them again recently. We hit them again pretty hard’, Trump further said.
On 26 December, he announced ‘powerful and deadly’ strikes against ISIS militants in northwestern Nigeria after he warned the group to stop killing Christians in the country.
The U.S. Department of Defence said that ‘multiple ISIS terrorists’ were killed in an attack conducted at the request of Nigerian authorities.
