Abuja, Nigeria - Nigeria on Friday hinted that more strikes against militant groups were expected after US President Donald Trump ordered surprise attacks on Christmas Day.

"It's Nigeria that provided the intelligence," foreign minister Yusuf Tuggar told Channels TV, saying he was on the phone with US State Secretary Marco Rubio ahead of Thursday's bombardment.

Asked if there would be more strikes, he responded: "It is an ongoing thing, and we are working with the US. We are working with other countries as well."

Tuggar said that Nigerian President Bola Tinubu "gave the go-ahead" for the strikes, insisting that this was "a joint operation, and it is not targeting any religion nor simply in the name of one religion or the other."

US Africa Command said "multiple ISIS terrorists" were killed in an attack in the northwestern state of Sokoto.

The US strikes come after Abuja and Washington were locked in a diplomatic dispute over Trump's claims that Christians were being killed en masse. The framing of the violence as Christian "persecution" is rejected by the Nigerian government and independent analysts.

Nigeria's jihadist groups are mostly concentrated in the northeast of the country, but have made inroads into the northwest.

Researchers have recently linked some members from an armed group known as Lakurawa – the main jihadist group located in Sokoto State – to Islamic State Sahel Province (ISSP), which is mostly active in neighboring Niger and Mali.

Other analysts have disputed those links, though research on Lakurawa is complicated as the term has been used to describe various armed fighters in the northwest.

Those described as Lakurawa also reportedly have links to an Al-Qaeda-affiliated group that is a rival to ISSP.