The Nigerian Army is using a video of President Trump claiming the U.S. military would treat rock-throwing migrants like combatants firing rifles to justify opening fire on a Shiite group this week.
In the video, posted to the Nigerian Army’s official Twitter feed on Friday, Trump said U.S. forces would treat those throwing rocks at troops as though they were wielding firearms.
“Anybody throwing stones, rocks — like they did to Mexico and the Mexican military, Mexican police, where they badly hurt police and soldiers of Mexico — we will consider that a firearm because there’s not much difference,” Trump said during a press conference Thursday.
“Please watch and make your deductions,” the army said in its Twitter post.
The army posted Trump’s comments in response to criticism that soldiers acted unlawfully when they fired on protesters who marched in the capital this week, Nigeria’s defense spokesman John Agim told AFP, according to the Daily Mail.
“The video was posted in reaction to the Amnesty International report accusing the army of using weapons against pacifist Shiite protesters,” Agim said. “Not only did they use stones but they were carrying petrol bombs, machetes and knives, so yes, we consider them as being armed.”
The Islamic Movement of Nigeria said 49 of its members were killed when the army and police forces fired at them. The Nigerian army’s official death toll was six.
The U.S. Embassy in Nigeria called for an investigation into the incident.
“We intervened only because the IMN members are trying to harm our people, they are always meeting us … at security check points and trying to provoke us, they even burned a police vehicle,” Agim said.
Four hundred IMN members were arrested Monday and on Thursday 120 of them were charged with “rioting, disturbance of public peace and causing hurt,” a court official in Abuja told AFP Friday. All pleaded not guilty and were granted bail.
Court documents indicate that the IMN members were ordered to disperse but “refused and started throwing stones at the police officers and other members of the public and thereby caused them bodily harm.”
Nigeria is split between the Muslim north, which is majority Sunni, and the Christian south.
