Ruth Maclean Saikou Jammeh and Ismail Auwal
President Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., on Monday. He said that the targets of Thursday’s strike on Sokoto State in Nigeria were members of the Islamic State.Credit...Eric Lee for The New York Times
Ruth Maclean and Saikou Jammeh cover West and Central Africa. Ismail Auwal writes about northern Nigeria and reported from Jos, Nigeria.
After the U.S. military launched airstrikes on sites in northwestern Nigeria on Thursday, President Trump said the targets were Islamic State terrorists “who have been targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians.”
But analysts say that the situation on the ground is more complicated.
Sokoto State, which was hit by more than 12 Tomahawk missiles Thursday night, is populated overwhelmingly by Muslims, who bear the brunt of terrorist attacks there, according to analysts and groups that monitor conflict. Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of Sokoto said recently that the area does “not have a problem with persecution” of Christians.
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