Abou Bilal al-Minuki, born in 1982, played an essential role in Daesh’s branch in West Africa. Nigeria and the United States have announced the death of a leader of the Islamic State group in a joint operation of their armies, the second in five months launched in this West African country plagued by jihadist violence.
This operation, announced by Donald Trump, targeted this time Abou Bilal al-Minuki, whom he presented as the number two of IS in the world. “The courageous American forces and the Nigerian armed forces carried out to perfection a meticulously planned and very complex mission to eliminate the world’s most active terrorist from the battlefield,” declared the American president on his Truth Social network from Friday night to Saturday.
“He will no longer terrorize the African population or contribute to planning operations targeting Americans. With his elimination, the operational capabilities of IS around the world are considerably reduced,” he added.
“Our determined Nigerian armed forces, working closely with US armed forces, carried out a bold joint operation that dealt a severe blow to the ranks of the Islamic State,” confirmed Nigerian President Bola Tinubu in a statement.
According to the Nigerian army, it was a “precision air-ground operation, meticulously planned and extremely complex,” which took place on Saturday between midnight and 4 a.m. The jihadist leader died “with several of his lieutenants, during a strike against his compound in the Lake Chad basin,” the Nigerian president specified.
According to Nigerian defense forces, Abou Bilal al-Minuki was a “high-ranking official of the Islamic State and one of the most active terrorists in the world.” He is described as “an operational and strategic figure who provided advice to IS entities outside Nigeria on issues related to media operations, economic warfare, and the development and manufacture of weapons, explosives, and drones.”
They also state that “his death eliminates an essential link through which the Islamic State coordinated and directed its operations in different regions of the world.”
Born in 1982 in Borno province, Nigeria, al-Minuki became one of the main figures of the Islamic State in West Africa (ISWA) after the death, in 2018, of the former group leader in the region, Mamman Nur, according to specialists from the Counter Extremism Project NGO, cited by ABC News.
Al-Minuki was based in the Sahel region and reportedly fought in Libya when Daesh was active in that North African country over ten years ago. He is also considered one of the main architects of the formation of the Islamic State in West Africa after its split with Boko Haram in 2016.
Abou Bilal al-Minuki was placed under American sanctions in 2023 for his links with the Islamic State group.
“If the elimination of Abou Bilal al-Minuki is confirmed, it would be a major blow to IS in West Africa and the Sahelian branch. He is the man of connection and relations between the two,” commented France 24 journalist and jihadist movements specialist Wassim Nasr.
The spokesman for the Nigerian army, Sani Uba, stated that the operation followed intelligence indicating that al-Minuki and his international terrorist cell had hidden a fortified enclave in an isolated village of Metele, located in the Lake Chad basin, in the northeast of Borno State, the epicenter of an armed insurgency lasting 17 years.
This is the second time in five months that the American president has launched a military intervention in Nigeria, where he denounces persecutions against Christians.
The resurgence of deadly attacks and mass abductions in recent months draws the attention of the United States. President Donald Trump asserts that Christians in Nigeria are “persecuted” and victims of a “genocide” perpetrated by “terrorists,” a claim strongly denied by Abuja and most experts, as the violence affects Christians and Muslims indiscriminately.
The American military, in coordination with Nigerian authorities, carried out strikes in Sokoto State on Christmas Day targeting, according to Washington, IS jihadists.
