US and Nigerian forces killed a senior ISIS commander on Friday, President Donald Trump said, in an operation he claimed had “greatly diminished” the militant group’s power.
“Tonight, at my direction, brave American forces and the Armed Forces of Nigeria flawlessly executed a meticulously planned and very complex mission to eliminate the most active terrorist in the world from the battlefield,” Trump said in a Truth Social post late Friday ET.
The president named the target as “Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, second in command of ISIS globally,” adding: “He will no longer terrorize the people of Africa, or help plan operations to target Americans.”
Trump did not specify where the attack happened. He said al-Minuki “thought he could hide in Africa, but little did he know we had sources who kept us informed on what he was doing.”
According to documents from the US Office of Foreign Assets Control, al-Minuki was born in 1982 in the northeastern Nigerian state of Borno, which borders Cameroon, Chad and Niger.
Al-Minuki has long been a focus of Nigeria’s military operations. In 2024, he was among the suspected ISWAP/Boko Haram commanders killed in the Birnin Gwari forest area of northern Kaduna State.
On Sunday, Bayo Onanuga, a spokesperson for President Tinubu, issued a statement acknowledging the earlier claim of al-Minuki’s death in 2024, but explained that the previous listing was “a case of mistaken identity or misattribution.” Onanuga also added that the Birnin Gwari area was never within al-Minuki’s established operational hub. “This time, however, security and military authorities maintain a far higher level of confidence,” he said.
Trump thanked the Nigerian government for its cooperation, and said “with his removal, ISIS’s global operation is greatly diminished.”
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that US forces had for months “hunted this top ISIS leader in Nigeria who was killing Christians, and we killed him — and his entire posse.”
“Operations like last night’s demonstrate the exceptional lethality, patience and skill of U.S. forces, amplified alongside willing and capable partners, to address shared threats,” Hegseth added.
Nigeria’s State House, the office of the President of Nigeria, also confirmed the operation in a statement. Nigerian and US forces “conducted a daring joint operation that dealt a heavy blow to the ranks of the Islamic State,” it said.
Credit: cnn.com
