Pentagon has received contingency plans for possible air operations in Nigeria after US President Donald Trump directed the Defense Department to “prepare to intervene” to protect Christians from attacks, The New York Times has reported.
According to the report, U.S. Africa Command submitted a set of operational options to the Defense Department at the request of Secretary Pete Hegseth. Officials described the proposals as three-tiered — “heavy,” “medium,” and “light” — each spelling out different levels of U.S. involvement on Nigerian soil and in the surrounding region.
The most robust, or “heavy,” plan would place a carrier strike group in the Gulf of Guinea and use fighter aircraft or long-range bombers to hit militant positions deep inside northern Nigeria. A separate option envisions deploying MQ-9 Reaper and MQ-1 Predator drones for targeted strikes against insurgent camps, convoys and vehicles, carried out with U.S. intelligence to ensure “precise and timely” hits, the report said.
By contrast, the “light” option focuses on bolstering intelligence sharing, providing logistical support and conducting joint operations with Nigerian forces to counter Boko Haram and other Islamist militants accused of attacks on churches, mass killings and abductions.
Senior Pentagon officials reportedly caution that limited airstrikes or drone strikes alone are unlikely to end Nigeria’s long-running insurgency unless the U.S. mounted a major, sustained campaign akin to past wars in Iraq or Afghanistan — a course Washington is not pursuing at this time.
Recalled that President Trump in a post.on Saturday had threatened to send U.S. forces into Nigeria “guns-a-blazing” if the Nigerian government failed to curb what he called the killing of Christians. “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,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities,” he wrote on Truth Social.
“I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action. If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet,” Trump added.
The remark follows Mr. Trump’s designation of Nigeria as a “Country of Particular Concern,” a move he framed as a response to what he described as a “mass slaughter”:
“Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria. Thousands of Christians are being killed. Radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter,” he wrote.
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