Recent US military strikes in Nigeria and Syria do not signal a shift in Washington’s use of force under Donald Trump but are instead part of a long-running strategy to combat Islamic State, a senior Republican lawmaker has said.
Mike Turner, an Ohio congressman and senior member of the US House armed services committee, said the operations were consistent with American foreign policy pursued across both of Mr Trump’s presidential terms.
Speaking on Sunday, Mr Turner described the strikes as “a continuation of our conflict with the Islamic State”.
“It’s been, you know, around the world, Iraq, Syria. You’re seeing it now in Nigeria,” he said, rejecting suggestions that the attacks reflected a more aggressive second-term approach by the Trump administration.
This Week, Mr Turner said US policy towards IS had remained “very consistent”, whether targeting the group in Iraq, Syria or Nigeria.
“The US is seeing that [IS] around the world has not been defeated,” he said. “They will continue to be a target and something that, with our allies, we’re going to have to continue to respond to, or they’re going to continue to be a threat.”
His comments followed a Pentagon-confirmed cruise missile strike on terrorist camps in north-western Nigeria, carried out three days earlier. Mr Trump later referred to the attack as a “Christmas present” for IS militants operating in the region.
The president expanded on the remark during a radio interview in New York, calling IS “butchers” who had received “a very bad Christmas present”. Referring to the persecution of Christians in parts of Nigeria, Mr Trump said he had warned the region that attacks would be met with force.
US defence secretary Pete Hegseth echoed the message in a post on X, saying Mr Trump had made it clear that “the killing of innocent Christians in Nigeria (and elsewhere) must end”. He added that the defence department, rebranded by the Trump administration as the “war department”, remained ready to act.
Mr Turner said the same consistency applied to US policy on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He described Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Christmas Day strikes and further attacks over the weekend as a reminder that Moscow remained an adversary.
“When we address the issue of whose side we’re on, you can’t be America first and be pro-Russia,” he said. “Russia is a self-declared adversary of the United States. They are mercilessly killing Ukrainians and trying to take Ukrainian land. So, the president has rightly said we need to end this war.”
