U.S. and Nigerian forces have carried out a joint operation that killed a senior Islamic State commander, President Donald Trump said late Friday, claiming the operation had “greatly diminished” the militant group.
Abu-Bilal al-Minuki was “second in command of ISIS globally” and “the most active terrorist in the world,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. He “thought he could hide in Africa, but little did he know we had sources who kept us informed on what he was doing,” Trump added.
Trump said U.S. and Nigerian forces carried out the “meticulously planned” raid at his direction and thanked the Nigerian government for its partnership in what he described as a “complex mission.”
“With his removal, ISIS’s global operation is greatly diminished,” he said.
Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu confirmed the strike in a post on X Saturday, describing it as a “daring joint operation that dealt a heavy blow to the ranks of the Islamic State.”
“Early assessments confirm the elimination of the wanted IS senior leader, Abu-Bilal Al-Manuki [Minuki] … along with several of his lieutenants, during a strike on his compound in the Lake Chad Basin,” he said.
“Nigeria appreciates this partnership with the United States in advancing our shared security objectives.”
Al-Minuki, a Nigerian national, was named as a “specially designated global terrorist” by the State Department in 2023 under the Biden administration for his leadership role in ISIS.
Based in the Sahel, al-Minuki rose to become the senior leader of ISIS’s al-Furqan office, described as one of the group’s best-established and most active networks by the Counter Extremism Project, a nonprofit which tracks militant groups.
The raid comes after the Trump administration launched strikes against ISIS in Nigeria in December following a months-long pressure campaign in the U.S. on behalf of Nigerian Christians, The Post reported. Previously Trump had accused the country’s government of killing Christians and threatened to go in “guns-a-blazing” in a move that sparked a mix of confusion and fear in the country.
Nigeria’s population of more than 230 million is roughly split between Muslims and Christians. (Some polls show an almost even split; others put it at closer to 45 percent Christian, 55 percent Muslim.) Analysts say conflict in the country has broadly impacted Nigerians, regardless of their religion, with bouts of violence occurring across several regions.
Trump had previously announced the death of a former ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in October 2019, saying he died after detonating a suicide vest during a raid by U.S. Special Forces in northwest Syria.
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