Why is the US bombing Nigeria?

President Donald Trump rang in Christmas Day by ordering airstrikes against two ISIS camps in Nigeria. The strikes, involving more than a dozen Tomahawk missiles fired from a Navy ship, came shortly after Trump vowed retaliation against ISIS, which allegedly carried out deadly attacks against US troops and civilians around the world last week. Why is the US bombing Nigeria? Humanitarian intervention, MAGA-style. Joshua Keating is a senior correspondent at Vox covering foreign policy and world news with a focus on the future of international conflict. He is the author of the 2018 book an exploration of border conflicts, unrecognized countries, and changes to the world map. Invisible Countries: Journeys to the Edge of Nationhood , But Trump has been talking about military action in Nigeria, specifically, since November, when he vowed on social media to go “guns-a-blazing” into the country if its government failed to prevent the persecution of Christians. In his post announcing the strikes on Christmas, Trump accused ISIS of “targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians at levels not seen for many years, and even Centuries!” It’s the latest example of how the Nobel Peace Prize aspirant and advocate of “America First” foreign policy is more than willing to use military force to accomplish his foreign policy goals, and to interfere in the domestic affairs of other countries, when doing so aligns with his domestic political priorities. In this sense, the actions in Nigeria are similar to the ongoing military build-up around Venezuela, where military strikes on land may still take place in the immediate future. In both cases, the president appears to be contradicting his frequently expressed opposition to military interventionism, but these are interventions linked to the priorities of his political base: in one case, keeping drugs and migrants out of the US. In another, protecting Christians. As we get deeper into Trump’s second term, it’s becoming increasingly clear that MAGA is not immune from the temptation to go abroad in search of monsters to destroy . What is actually happening in Nigeria? The problem Trump is talking about here is a real one. The hardline Islamist terror group known as Boko Haram and its offshoots have waged a brutal insurgency against the Nigerian state in the northern part of the country since 2009, committing numerous high-profile massacres and kidnappings, including the 2014 Chibok schoolgirl abduction that attracted a global media campaign. A Boko Haram splinter group has been fighting under the ISIS banner since around 2016. This isn’t the only religious conflict going on. Recent years have also seen a wave of clashes and attacks between predominantly Muslim herders and predominantly Christian farming communities in Northwest and Northcentral Nigeria. The Nigerian military has been fighting the insurgency for years, but President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has been accused of ignoring the plight of Christians, in particular, and the military campaign has been hampered by widespread corruption and alleged human rights abuses. In addition, several Nigerian states have some of the world’s most draconian blasphemy...

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