Sebastian Gorka, deputy assistant to US President Donald Trump and senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council, has claimed that US forces killed 199 jihadists during a single operation in Nigeria.
Gorka made the assertion during an interview with Marissa Streit, CEO of conservative media organisation PragerU, which aired on June 24. The discussion focused on the Trump administration’s counterterrorism strategy.
Speaking about ongoing operations against Islamist extremist groups, Gorka said the mission had recently been declassified.
“The president is not nation-building; he’s not going around the world like some lunatic neocon saying, ‘We will turn the world into America,'” he said.
He went on to describe what he said was a recent US operation in Nigeria.
“But if you’re threatening Americans, or if you’re targeting Christians because they’re Christians, he has a very strong message to send to you, whether it was his Christmas Day strike or, three weeks ago, what we did in Nigeria. Three weeks ago in Nigeria, and I watched it live from the Situation Room. It was like being in a Tom Clancy movie, but it’s better because it’s real. I watched our operatives kill 199 jihadists in one operation.”
Gorka described the alleged strike as the largest single neutralisation of enemy fighters since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
“That is the biggest neutralisation of enemy killed in action since September 11. One hundred and ninety-nine jihadists who will not harm Americans again,” he said.
However, Gorka did not identify the specific operation he was referring to. The United States and Nigeria have previously carried out joint counterterrorism missions against ISIS-linked fighters and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) in the Lake Chad Basin.
He also claimed the operation yielded a substantial cache of electronic intelligence.
“From that raid we brought home, we needed an extra plane to bring home all the electronic material that we captured in those camps. The haul was three times bigger than any enemy electronics haul since 9/11. That is priceless because now our experts are analysing all of that information, looking at how ISIS is communicating with each other. We are so back in the game of counterterrorism,” he said.
Gorka further argued that Africa has become a major front in the fight against terrorism, citing the expansion of extremist groups that exploit political instability and local conflicts, while stressing the importance of US security partnerships across the continent.
Nigerian authorities had not publicly confirmed Gorka’s claims at the time of reporting.
