Trump supporters hail US strikes in Nigeria as ‘amazing Christmas present’

The US’s Christmas Day strikes against Islamic State targets in Nigeria have been met with praise by Donald Trump supporters who for months had been agitating for the president to respond forcefully to the killings of Christians in the country.

“I can’t think of a better way to celebrate Christmas than by avenging the death of Christians through the justified mass killing of Islamic terrorists,” the far-right political activist Laura Loomer posted on X. “You’ve got to love it! Death to all Islamic terrorists! Thank you.”

Loomer said she had been informed by the US defense department – which the Trump administration calls the war department – that the American cruise missile strikes carried out with the Nigerian government’s cooperation had been “a direct response to [IS] jihadi terrorists killing Christians in Nigeria”.

The US House member Randy Fine, a Florida Republican who in November supported a congressional resolution calling for Nigeria to be designated a “country of particular concern” due to its religious violence, described Thursday’s strikes as an “amazing Christmas present!”

“With Muslim terrorists attacking Christians in Nigeria, Syria, and even Europe – simply for refusing to submit to Islam – the president is showing that we will no longer tolerate these barbarians,” Fine said on X, after suggesting earlier in December that “mainstream Muslims” should be “destroyed”.

The uniformity of the Republicans’ response comes in contrast to a campaign involving economic pressure as well as airstrikes on alleged drug boats that the Trump administration is waging on Venezuela to oust its president, Nicolás Maduro. Some Republicans have warned that the history of US “regime change” efforts are not promising and have warned against direct military strikes on Venezuela.

Attacks on Christians by Islamic extremist groups in Nigeria such as Boko Haram had been drawing increased attention from US Christian groups that are generally aligned with Trump.

“Do not test President Trump‘s resolved [sic] in this matter,” said a post from the Republican US House member Riley Moore of West Virginia, who introduced the Nigeria-related congressional resolution in November. “Tonight’s strike in coordination with the Nigerian government is just the first step to ending the slaughter of Christians and the security crisis affecting all Nigerians.”

In further comments on Friday, other Republican lawmakers praised Trump for carrying out the strikes. North Carolina senator Ted Budd, a Republican, said that IS “is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Christians & religious minorities in Nigeria”.

Budd wrote that Trump’s “decisive strikes will save lives & protect religious freedom. May God bless our brave men & women in uniform.”

Congressman Bill Huizenga, a Michigan Republican who recently led a delegation to Nigeria, said that attitudes within the Nigerian government were “beginning to turn in favor of protecting Christians – in addition to taking actions against those terrorizing Christians and moderate Muslims”.

Senator Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican, said on X that he commended the Trump administration as well as American troops for “these strikes against bloodthirsty [IS] savages who are not only persecuting Christians, but also have killed many Americans”.

Pressure on the administration to act in Nigeria had been building since July, when the US Commission on International Religious Freedom issued an advisory that said the Nigerian government was “often unable to prevent or slow to react to violent attacks by Fulani herders, bandit gangs, and insurgent entities such as JAS/Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP)”.

In October, Ted Cruz – a Republican senator from Texas – said the US was able to identify the perpetrators of anti-Christian violence in Nigeria “and I intend to hold them accountable”. Cruz said that since 2009, “over 50,000 Christians in Nigeria have been massacred, and over 18,000 churches and 2,000 Christian schools have been destroyed”.

At the recent AmericaFest, a four-day gathering of US conservative organized by Turning Point USA, the Trinidadian rap star Nicki Minaj spoke with Charlie Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, on the oppression of Christians in Nigeria. She said she loved Nigeria in part because her pastor is Nigerian.

“Hearing that people are being kidnapped – while they’re in church, people are being kidnapped, people are being killed, brutalized, all because of their religion – that should spark outrage in America, and that’s what it’s doing,” Minaj said.

Thursday’s strikes in Nigeria come less than a week after the US hit more than 70 Islamic State networks and infrastructure in Syria in response to an attack that killed two American military service members as well as a civilian.

Adm Brad Cooper, commander of the American military’s Central Command (Centcom), said the Syrian strikes were “critical to preventing [IS] from inspiring terrorist plots and attacks against the US homeland”.

Hegseth on Friday warned of additional US strikes against IS targets in northern Nigeria.