US President Trump has threatened to send US forces into Nigeria with "guns-a-blazing" if Africa's most populous country does not stem what he described as the killing of Christians.
In an explosive post on his Truth Social platform on Saturday, the Republican leader said he asked the Pentagon to map out a possible plan of attack, one day after warning that Christianity was "facing an existential threat in Nigeria."
"If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the U.S.A. will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, 'guns-a-blazing,'" he said.
"I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action. If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians," he added.
He ended his post with "WARNING: THE NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT BETTER MOVE FAST!"
Nigeria is embroiled in numerous conflicts that experts say have killed both Christians and Muslims without distinction, warning that exploiting religious differences could only benefit the terrorist groups.
Nigeria rejects Trump’s claims
Trump on Friday posted and claimed that "thousands of Christians are being killed,” and some radicals are responsible for this “mass slaughter."
Trump’s claims are a sharp contradiction of his senior advisor for Arab and African affairs, Mossad Boullos, who in mid-October rejected claims that a “genocide” against Christians was taking place in Nigeria.
Boullos said that terrorist groups in Nigeria "are killing more Muslims than Christians."
The Nigerian government has rejected Trump’s claims.
“For the avoidance of any doubt, and out of respect for all the victims and survivors around the world of this unique and appalling crime against humanity, let the record show that there is no genocide, now or ever, in Nigeria,” Foreign Minister Yusuf Maitama Tuggar said on Saturday in a social media post.
Nigeria is almost evenly divided between a Muslim-majority north and a largely Christian south.
