Mike Turner, a senior Republican on the US House armed services committee, has said that recent American military strikes in Nigeria and Syria are in line with longstanding US policy to combat Islamic extremism across Donald Trump’s two presidential terms.
“It’s been, you know, around the world, Iraq, Syria. You’re seeing it now in Nigeria,” Turner told ABC’s This Week, denying that the strikes represent a new second-term approach. He insisted the policy towards the Islamic State (IS) is “very consistent”.
The comments came after the Pentagon launched a cruise missile strike on terrorist camps in north-western Nigeria, which Trump called a “Christmas present” for IS militants. The president later said on WABC radio that IS were “butchers” who “got a very bad Christmas present”, adding that he had warned Nigeria and surrounding countries that “if you do it, you’re going to get hit.”
US defence secretary Pete Hegseth said on X that Trump had made clear “the killing of innocent Christians in Nigeria (and elsewhere) must end”. Hegseth, whose department has been rebranded as the war department, added: “More to come.”
Turner also linked the consistency of US policy to its stance on Russia’s war in Ukraine, saying Putin’s Christmas Day strikes were a reminder “that we can’t be for this”. He argued: “You can’t be America first and be pro-Russia. Russia is a self-declared adversary of the United States.”
