U.S. and Nigerian forces killed a pacesetter of the Islamic State group in Nigeria in a mission carried out Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump said.
Trump announced the joint operation in Africa’s most populous country in a late-night social media post. He said Abu Bakr al-Mainuki was second-in-command of the Islamic State group globally and “thought he could hide in Africa, but little did he know we had sources who kept us informed on what he was doing.”
Al-Mainuki was viewed as the important thing figure in IS organizing and finance, and had been plotting attacks against the US and its interests, in response to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to share sensitive information.
Nigerian President Bola Tinubu confirmed the operation and said Al-Mainuki was killed alongside “several of his lieutenants, during a strike on his compound within the Lake Chad Basin.”
The joint operation is the newest by each countries since their latest security partnership that kicked off last yr after Trump claimed Christians were being targeted in Nigeria’s security crisis and threatened U.S. military intervention. Residents and security analysts have said Nigeria’s security crisis affects each Christians, predominant within the south, and Muslims, who’re the bulk within the north.
Based on the spokesperson for the Nigerian military task force that carried out the Friday operation, the mission was a “highly complex precision air-land operation” and was carried out during three nighttimes early Saturday with none casualties or lack of assets.
“His elimination represents the one most consequential counterterrorism final result” within the region because the inception of the operation in 2015, Sani Uba, the spokesperson for the duty force, said in an announcement.
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United Nations experts of their latest report said IS had intensified efforts in West Africa, citing greater than 500 attacks between January and October last yr.
Questions over Al-Mainuki’s exact status in IS
Born in Nigeria’s Borno province in 1982, al-Mainuki took the helm of the IS branch in West Africa after his predecessor, Mamman Nur, was killed in 2018, in response to the Counter Extremism Project, which tracks militant groups.
Al-Mainuki was based within the Sahel area, the monitoring group said, adding that it’s believed that he fought in Libya when IS was energetic within the North African nation greater than a decade ago. He was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2023.
Trump, in his social media announcement, said Al-Mainuki was “second in command globally,” hiding in Africa, a claim that some analysts say is off the mark. The Nigerian military, in an announcement, also said intelligence shows that earlier this yr, Al-Mainuki might need been “elevated to the position of Head of the General Directorate of States, placing him the second most senior leader throughout the ISIS global hierarchy.”
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth also said Al-Mainuki was the senior ISIS General Directorate of Provinces Emir — “the number two for ISIS globally — answerable for overseeing the planning of attacks, directing the hostage-taking and managing financial operations.”
There isn’t a method to confirm his position inside IS independently. Analysts say Al-Mainuki was the deputy to Abu Musab al-Barnawi, the leader of the Islamic State West African Province who was reported to have died in 2021. He’s considered one in all the central proponents of the formation of ISWAP, after its split with Boko Haram in 2016.
“If confirmed, the killing of Al-Mainuki is big because that is the primary time a security agency has killed someone this high within the rating of ISWAP,” Malik Samuel, a senior researcher at Good Governance Africa who focuses on insurgent groups in Nigeria, said.
“The potential to cause chaos throughout the group can also be there since the operation should have been carried out in the guts of ISWAP’s fortified base, which may be very difficult to access.”
Trump in December directed U.S. forces to launch strikes against the Islamic State group in Nigeria, though he released little detail then concerning the impact.
US and Nigeria step up joint operations
The Nigerian military said the operation was a results of recently formed U.S.-Nigeria partnership and intelligence-sharing efforts. Samalia Uba, the military spokesperson, said in an announcement that the operation has also “disrupted a violent terrorist network that endangered Nigeria and the broader West African region.”
Nigeria has been battling multiple armed groups, including no less than two affiliated with IS, because it has grappled with a multifaceted security crisis. IS affiliates in Africa have emerged as among the continent’s most energetic militant groups following the collapse of the so-called IS caliphate in Syria and Iraq in 2017.
The U.S. in February sent troops to the West African nation to assist advise its military, and in March, the U.S. also deployed drones there after Trump’s allegations about Christians being targeted in Nigeria.
The Friday night operation was the newest instance in a string of covert missions abroad that Trump has announced this yr, starting with the stunning overnight raid in January to capture and take away Venezuela’s then-leader Nicolás Maduro and whisk him to the U.S., followed nearly two months later by the launch of strikes that kicked off the war with Iran.
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