Rep. Turner defends strikes against Islamic State in Nigeria as Democrats question tactics

Rep. Mike Turner on Sunday defended the Trump administration’s Christmas Day strikes against Islamic State targets in Nigeria, arguing that they were consistent with U.S. foreign policy and are necessary to combat global extremism.

In an interview with reporter Jonathan Karl on ABC’s “This Week,” Mr. Turner, Ohio Republican, said strikes like the ones carried out last week on targets in Nigeria would continue as long as ISIS and groups like them persist. 

“It’s been, you know, around the world, Iraq, Syria. You’re seeing it now in Nigeria,” said Mr. Turner, who also serves on the House Armed Services Committee. 

“We’re, of course, seeing that ISIS around the world has not been defeated but 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.”

U.S. forces struck numerous Islamic State targets in northwest Nigeria on Thursday in what Mr. Trump said was retaliation for the terror group’s years of attacks on Christian civilians in the African nation. 

U.S. Africa Command said the attacks were carried out in coordination with the Nigerian government, which has struggled to contain ISIS and its various affiliates that are gaining strength in Nigeria.

Mr. Turner’s comments are in line with other GOP lawmakers who took to social media to praise the White House for the Christmas strikes. Rep. Don Bacon, Nebraska Republican who serves on the House Armed Services Committee, said the move “saves innocent lives.” 

But Democrats like Michigan Rep. Debbie Dingell have questioned the legality of the attacks, insisting that only Congress has the authority to escalate conflict abroad. 

Democratic lawmakers are skeptical of the White House’s strategy in Nigeria and suggested the focus on Christians is unproductive and possibly dangerous. 

Rep. Adam Smith, Washington Democrat, who is the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, called the strikes “unnecessarily escalatory” and could push the U.S. into a “global religious war.”

The Nigerian government has denied that there is ongoing persecution of Christian civilians in the country. 

The Trump administration in recent weeks has ramped up assaults on the Islamic State around the world, including in Syria, where American forces hit more than 70 ISIS targets on Dec. 20 after a terrorist gunman killed two U.S. soldiers and a civilian interpreter earlier this month.

Analysts have warned that the group could be mounting a resurgence, both as an organized terrorist faction and as an inspiration to extremists around the world. 

The two men who allegedly carried out a deadly antisemitic attack at Australia’s Bondi Beach earlier this month, for example, were inspired by ISIS, Australian authorities said.

Mr. Trump offered little detail on the Nigerian operation in a Christmas evening Truth Social post, but warned that the U.S. would not allow what some have characterized as an ethnic cleansing of Christians to continue. 

“I have previously warned these Terrorists that if they did not stop the slaughtering of Christians, there would be hell to pay, and tonight, there was,” he said.

U.S. Africa Command confirmed that it struck ISIS targets in Nigeria’s Sokoto State region, near the nation’s northwestern border with Niger.

“U.S. Africa Command is working with Nigerian and regional partners to increase counterterrorism cooperation efforts related to ongoing violence and threats against innocent lives,” Gen. Dagvin Anderson, the head of U.S. Africa Command, said in a statement. “Our goal is to protect Americans and to disrupt violent extremist organizations wherever they are.”

Nigeria is the latest African nation in which Mr. Trump has ordered new military operations or ramped up existing campaigns. The U.S. this year has carried out more than 100 strikes against terror targets in Somalia, including some against ISIS, in addition to its recent military operations against the group in Syria.

The Trump administration earlier this year added Nigeria to a U.S. watchlist as a “country of particular concern,” citing statistics showing more Christians being killed there — 3,100 last year — than anywhere else in the world.

The 3,100 figure represents nearly 70% of Christians killed worldwide, according to the international watchdog group Open Doors.