US strikes on Nigeria and Syria are ‘consistent’ with policy to combat IS, Republican says

A senior Republican on the US House armed services committee has said that the country’s recent military strikes in Nigeria and Syria are consistent with American foreign policy to combat Islamic extremism that have existed across Donald Trump’s two presidential terms.

Mike Turner, an Ohio congressman, said on Sunday that the strikes are a “continuation of our conflict with [the Islamic State]”.

“It’s been, you know, around the world, Iraq, Syria. You’re seeing it now in Nigeria,” Turner said.

Turner denied that the strikes represent a different second-term approach to military force. With respect to the Islamic State (IS), he told ABC’s This Week, US policy is “very consistent” in defeating it whether in Iraq, Syria or “here in Nigeria”.

Turner said the US is “seeing that [IS] around the world has not been defeated but will continue to be a target and something that, with our allies, we’re going to have to continue to respond to or they’re going to continue to be a threat”.

Mike Turner speaks after a briefing at the US Capitol on 15 February 2024 in Washington DC. Photograph: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

His comments came three days after the Pentagon launched a cruise missile strike on terrorist camps in north-western Nigeria during what Trump later called a “Christmas present” for IS militants in Nigeria.

The president later amplified his comments on WABC radio in New York, calling IS “butchers” who “got a very bad Christmas present”. Trump, referring to the persecution of Christians in the region, said he “told Nigeria, and I told the people around Nigeria, that if you do it, you’re going to get hit.”

US defense secretary Pete Hegseth said on X that Trump had made it clear that “the killing of innocent Christians in Nigeria (and elsewhere) must end”. He added that the defense department, which the Trump administration has rebranded the war department, “is always ready, so [IS] found out tonight – on Christmas. More to come.”

The consistency of the US approach, Turner said, applied to the its position on Russia’s war in Ukraine. Turner said the Russian president Vladimir Putin’s Christmas Day strikes in Ukraine and overnight on Saturday were a reminder “that we can’t be for this”.

“When we address the issue of whose side we’re on, you can’t be America first and be pro-Russia,” Turner remarked. “Russia is a self-declared adversary of the United States. They are mercilessly killing Ukrainians and trying to take Ukrainian land. So, the president has rightly said we need to end this war.”