JOHANNESBURG — An estimated 30,000 mostly Muslim Fulani militants are operating in Nigeria, causing "worsening insecurity and religious freedom violations," according to an influential new report.
But a former counterterrorism expert at the State Department told Fox News Digital that the kind of strikes the U.S., working with Nigerian government forces, have recently carried out in Nigeria’s North against Islamist terrorist organizations such as Boko Haram and Islamic State, wouldn’t work against the Fulanis in the predominantly Christian central areas of the country.
Sterling Tilley, former acting director within the Bureau of Counterterrorism, who has worked in Nigeria for the State Department, said that the U.S. "militarily dealing with the farmer-herder conflict is not advisable because it is likely to bring more instability in the country." Tilley, now director of the Thomas R. Pickering Graduate Foreign Affairs Fellowship at Howard University, added, "There are some steps that can be taken to quell the violence, but there must be Nigerian political will to do so."
This week, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth commented on the recent strikes ordered by President Donald Trump on Nigeria, saying, "Maybe a year ago, [the president] heard the call of Nigerian Christians who were being targeted and killed by ISIS. And he said, 'Pete, I want the War Department to focus on ensuring that we do everything we can to protect those Christians.'"
Blyth added: "The situation is complicated, and as the report concludes, it is too simplistic to say all perpetrators are religiously motivated. What is undisputable is that Christians are highly vulnerable and often the victims, paying the price in blood. They desperately need protection and, for hundreds of thousands driven from their homes, the chance to heal and rebuild their lives."
The USCIRF report also stated, "Criticism of responses to Fulani militant violence from federal and state authorities has often described their responses as unsatisfactory at best and complicit at worst."
Tilley told Fox News Digital that elections are to be held in Nigeria next year, and "the Fulani do have considerable political influence as a voting bloc. Thus, the Nigerian government seems reluctant to take actions necessary to quell the violence for fear that they could lose their base of support in the North and Middle Belt."
Fox News Digital reached out to the Nigerian government for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.