US President Donald Trump sarcastically wished “a Merry Christmas to everyone, including the dead terrorists” in his Christmas speech. American bombing the same day and mentioned the possibility of military intervention in Nigeria to protect Christians from “genocide.” However, the geography of the strikes raises questions for observers. Thus, the bombings did not fall on the known positions of the terrorist organization “Islamic State in West Africa” banned in Russia in the northeastern state of Borno near Lake Chad, but on the northwestern state of Sokoto – at the opposite end of Nigeria's northern border.
The White House claims that the targets belonged to the Islamic State, experts said, suggesting the attacks were aimed at the newly emerged Lakurawa group in the region. However, this group, numbering about 200 fighters, does not pose a serious threat to Christians compared to the thousands of fighters of the Islamic State in West Africa, Boko Haram (recognized as terrorism and banned in the Russian Federation) or large numbers of “bandits” – criminal groups that plunder rural communities in the Northwest for ransom.
According to analysts, it is the “bandits” who primarily target Christian minorities in Sokoto, orchestrating high-profile operations such as the mass kidnapping of worshipers on November 19 from a church in Eruku for ransom.
The situation of Christians in northern Nigeria is truly alarming: since 2009, tens of thousands of Christians have died in 12 northern states, where they make up about 10% of the population. In the Lake Chad region, Boko Haram sometimes targets Christians, as in Chibok in April 2014, when 276 mostly Christian schoolgirls were kidnapped.
However, the frequency of such attacks has decreased since 2021, when Islamic State in West Africa took control of Boko Haram by eliminating its leader Abu Bakar Shekau. Shekau pursued a hard line of jihad that plundered “infidels” and “apostates,” for which he was ousted by the Islamic State in 2016 in favor of Abu Musab al-Barnawi, the son of Boko Haram's founder. In 2021, Shekau was eliminated and his followers formed a separate faction.
Lake Chad has become a testing ground for the Islamic State in shifting from a purely criminal model to governing areas through taxation rather than plunder, limiting the influence of extremists like Shekau and easing repression of civilians.
In this context, Trump's strikes appear inconsistent with current trends: the main attacks in 2024-2025 are believed to have been carried out by Shekau's followers and not by Islamic State in West Africa, which is trying to maintain local support.
The deeper causes of violence against Christians in the “Middle Belt” – the region between the Muslim north and the Christian south – have less to do with religion and more to do with land conflicts. Fulani Muslim nomadic herdsmen compete for grazing land with settled Christian Yoruba farmers. In March-April 2025, about a hundred Fulani Christian farmers were killed in Plateau State, as was the case in neighboring Benue in May.
Internal migration and desertification in the north are shifting nomadic routes further south, increasing conflicts where religious and ethnic differences overlap with the classic confrontation between nomads and settlers.
In addition, both Christians and Muslims suffered from “bandits” who took advantage of the state's weaknesses. The Nigerian army was overwhelmed by Igbo separatism in the southeast (the threat of a new war in Biafra), piracy on the coast, jihadism near Lake Chad, and looting in the north.
Trump's December 25 strikes in Sokoto may have the opposite effect: they highlight the shortcomings of the Nigerian state, put the government under pressure and, paradoxically, may embolden “bandits” to increasingly attack Christians, whose ransoms are increasing amid American demands for protection. For many Muslims in the north, the strikes will ultimately discredit a country linked to the Christian south and accused of neglecting Muslim nations.
State weakness can push Muslim communities to form self-defense militias – this is how Lakurava emerged from Malian and Nigerien fighters to defend against “bandits”. The strikes reinforced the perception of the Nigerian state as an external occupying force, allowing the jihadists to develop propaganda to protect Dar al-Islam from “crusaders” and “infidel states.”
Trump's Christmas attacks in Sokoto are therefore inconsistent with regional geopolitics and may even strengthen the Islamic State's position in West Africa. For Trump, however, this may be secondary: according to analysts, the main goal is to please the evangelical “America First” (MAGA) camp at a time when some supporters are skeptical due to Epstein case. Trump's foreign policy here, as in other cases, primarily serves domestic goals – maintaining support for MAGA under the guise of protecting US strategic interests and threatened minorities.
