United States President Donald Trump announced on Friday evening that U.S. and Nigerian military forces had killed a leader of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group, Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, in a ‘meticulously planned and very complex mission’.
On his alt-tech social media platform, Truth Social, Trumo described al-Minuki as the Islamic State’s second-in-command globally and ‘the most active terrorist in the world’.
The U.S. leader further wrote: ‘He will no longer terrorise the people of Africa, or help plan operations to target Americans. ‘With his removal, ISIS’s global operation is greatly diminished’.
A native of Nigeria, al-Minuki was described by the U.S. State Department in 2023 as a leader of the Islamic State, or ISIS, in Africa’s Sahel region. At the time, he served as a senior official in one of the ISIS’s General Directorate of Provinces offices, which ‘provides operational guidance and funding around the world’, according to the State Department.
He was placed on the Treasury Department’s specially designated global terrorist list in 2023, hitting him with steep sanctions.
The Islamic State has diminished significantly since the U.S., its regional allies, Iran and other forces wrested large swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria from the group’s control starting in 2017. But the U.S.-designated terrorist group and its affiliates have remained present in parts of the Middle East and Africa since then, carrying out insurgent attacks.
The group’s West Africa branches have a presence in Nigeria and in the Sahel, particularly in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. Suspected attacks by the Islamic State have been reported in all four countries in recent months, including an offensive on a military base in Nigeria and clashes with other Islamist groups, according to the International Crisis Group.
Trump ordered an earlier round of strikes on Islamic State targets in Nigeria last Christmas Day. The U.S. military’s Africa command said that ‘multiple ISIS terrorists’ were killed in camps.
The American president pressed Nigeria last fall to take more action against terrorism, accusing the country of failing to deal with rampant violence against Christians. The Nigerian government has denied that the country allows religious persecution, and analysts say large numbers of Muslims and Christians have been harmed by insurgency in northern Nigeria.
