The United States Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, has revealed that former U.S. President Donald Trump directed the Pentagon to focus on protecting Christians in Nigeria who were being targeted by ISIS-linked terrorist groups.
Hegseth made the disclosure during a press briefing at the White House on Wednesday. He said Trump gave the directive after receiving reports about repeated killings of Christians in parts of Nigeria affected by insurgency and terrorism.
According to him, the instruction was issued nearly a year ago as part of broader counterterrorism efforts in the Lake Chad region.
“Maybe a year ago, he heard the call of Nigerian Christians who were being targeted and killed by ISIS in Nigeria, and he said, ‘Pete, I want the War Department to focus on ensuring that we do everything we can to protect those Christians,’” Hegseth said during the briefing.
The U.S. defence chief explained that the operation involved intelligence sharing, military coordination and deployment of strategic assets between American and Nigerian security forces.
He disclosed that the operation later led to the killing of Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, described as the second-in-command of ISIS in the region.
Hegseth said the terrorist leader was eliminated during a joint military operation carried out in northeast Nigeria earlier this month.
He added that intelligence gathered during the mission also helped security forces track and eliminate several ISIS fighters allegedly responsible for attacks on Christian communities in Nigeria.
“And we got the assets there, and over the last month, and there hasn’t been much coverage of this, we killed ISIS number two in Nigeria, who’s most responsible for killing Christians and trying to target the U.S. homeland,” he stated.
According to him, hundreds of ISIS members linked to attacks in Nigeria have also been killed through intelligence-driven operations coordinated by both countries.
Hegseth described the mission as part of the Trump administration’s wider strategy against global terrorism and violent extremist groups.
He noted that many of the operations carried out by the U.S. military often receive little public attention despite their impact on international security.
“So there are a lot of things we do that the media pays attention to, and a lot of things that the President empowers the Department to do on behalf of the American people that he deserves great credit for,” he added.
Nigeria has continued to battle insurgency and armed attacks in the northeast and parts of the Middle Belt for over a decade. Terror groups linked to ISIS and Boko Haram have repeatedly launched attacks on communities, security formations and places of worship.
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