The armed forces of the United States and Nigeria killed Abu Bilal al-Minuki, indicated by American President Donald Trump as the global number two of the Islamic State and “the most active terrorist in the world”. Trump himself announced it in a message published on Truth Social. “Tonight, at my direction, courageous US forces and the Nigerian Armed Forces perfectly executed a meticulously planned and highly complex mission to eliminate the world’s most active terrorist from the battlefield,” the American president wrote. Abu Bilal al-Minuki, second in command of ISIS worldwide, thought he could hide in Africa, but he didn’t know we had sources keeping us informed about what he was doing.”
According to information released by the United States Treasury Department, al-Minuki, also known as Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad ibn Ali al-Mainuki, was born in 1982 in Mainok, Borno State, in northeastern Nigeria. He was considered one of the main perpetrators of the Islamic State’s activities in West Africa and the Sahel and played a coordinating role within the central structure of the jihadist group, particularly in the directorate responsible for supervising the organization’s “provinces” around the world.
Washington had placed him on the list of specially designated global terrorists in 2023. According to Trump, with its elimination “the operational capabilities of ISIS around the world are considerably reduced.”
Northern Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, has for years been the scene of violence by jihadist groups and local criminal gangs, responsible for attacks on villages and mass kidnappings for ransom. Last Christmas, the US army had already conducted, in coordination with the authorities in Abuja, bombings in Sokoto State against targets attributed to the Islamic State. Since then, military cooperation between states