U.S. and Nigerian forces killed a senior leader of the Islamic State group in Nigeria during a joint mission carried out on Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump announced. The operation targeted Abu Bakr al-Mainuki, whom Trump described as the second-in-command of the Islamic State group globally.
Details of the Operation
Trump revealed the operation in a late-night social media post, stating that al-Mainuki "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 an official who spoke on condition of anonymity, al-Mainuki was a key figure in Islamic State organizing and finance and had been plotting attacks against the United States and its interests.
Nigerian President Bola Tinubu confirmed the operation and said al-Mainuki was killed alongside "several of his lieutenants, during a strike on his compound in the Lake Chad Basin." The spokesperson for the Nigerian military task force, Sani Uba, described the operation as a "highly complex precision air-land operation" carried out during three hours of darkness early Saturday without any casualties or loss of assets. Uba stated, "His elimination represents the single most consequential counterterrorism outcome in the region since the inception of the operation in 2015."
Al-Mainuki's Background
Born in Nigeria's Borno province in 1982, al-Mainuki took over the Islamic State branch in West Africa after the previous leader, Mamman Nur, was killed in 2018, according to the Counter Extremism Project. He was based in the Sahel area and is believed to have fought in Libya when Islamic State was active there more than a decade ago. The U.S. sanctioned him in 2023.
Questions remain about al-Mainuki's exact status within Islamic State. Trump claimed he was "second in command globally," but some analysts dispute this. The Nigerian military noted that intelligence suggests al-Mainuki might have been elevated earlier this year to "Head of the General Directorate of States," placing him second within the ISIS global hierarchy. However, there is no independent verification. Analysts consider him the deputy to Abu Musab al-Barnawi, the leader of the Islamic State West African Province (ISWAP), who was reported dead in 2021. Al-Mainuki was a key proponent of ISWAP's formation after its split with Boko Haram in 2016.
Malik Samuel, a senior researcher at Good Governance Africa, said, "If confirmed, the killing of Al-Mainuki is huge because this is the first time a security agency has killed someone this high in the ranking of ISWAP. The potential to cause chaos within the group is also there because the operation must have been carried out in the heart of ISWAP's fortified base, which is very difficult to access."
U.S.-Nigeria Partnership
The operation resulted from a recently formed U.S.-Nigeria partnership and intelligence-sharing efforts. The Nigerian military stated that the operation disrupted "a violent terrorist network that endangered Nigeria and the broader West African region." Nigeria has been battling multiple armed groups, including at least two affiliated with Islamic State, amid a multifaceted security crisis. Islamic State affiliates in Africa have become some of the continent's most active militant groups since the collapse of the caliphate in Syria and Iraq in 2017.
The U.S. sent troops to Nigeria in February to advise its military, and in March, deployed drones there after Trump alleged that Christians are being targeted in Nigeria's security crisis. This operation is the latest in a string of covert missions abroad that Trump has announced this year, including the January raid to capture Venezuela's former leader Nicolás Maduro and the subsequent launch of strikes that began the war with Iran.
