The Federal Government on Friday confirmed that it supplied the United States with intelligence ahead of the Christmas Day airstrikes carried out by United States forces against suspected Islamic State militants in northwestern Nigeria.
The strikes followed weeks of diplomatic tension between Abuja and Washington after President Donald Trump accused Nigeria of allowing mass killings of Christians amid the country’s multiple security crises.
“It’s Nigeria that provided the intelligence,” Foreign Minister Yusuf Tuggar disclosed during an interview on Channels Television, revealing that he held direct discussions with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio before the operation.
“We spoke twice. We spoke for 19 minutes before the strike and then we spoke again for another five minutes before it went on,” Tuggar said.
According to the minister, the conversations were detailed, adding that President Bola Tinubu approved the military action.
He further explained that the strikes were not a one-off operation but part of a broader campaign that would extend beyond Nigeria, though he declined to name the countries involved.
Tuggar emphasized that Nigeria’s counterterrorism strategy is driven by security concerns rather than religious considerations, noting that the government protects all citizens equally.
“whether they are Muslims or Christians, and irrespective of what type of terrorism”.
Trump, reacting on social media, claimed the operation was a direct response to violence against Christians.
“I had previously warned these Terrorists that if they did not stop the slaughtering of Christians, there would be hell to pay, and tonight, there was.”
Meanwhile, the US Department of Defense’s Africa Command confirmed that “multiple ISIS terrorists” were killed during the airstrike in Sokoto State, using the acronym for the Islamic State group.
