WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump said U.S. and Nigerian forces killed a leader of the ISIS terrorist group in Nigeria in a mission carried out Friday.
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 ISIS 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.”
Born in Nigeria's Borno province in 1982, al-Mainuki took the helm of the ISIS branch in West Africa after the group’s previous leader in the region, Mamman Nur, was killed in 2018, according to the Counter Extremism Project, which tracks extremist groups.
Al-Mainuki was based in the Sahel area, the monitoring group said, adding that it is believed that he fought in Libya when ISIS was active in the North African nation more than a decade ago. He was sanctioned by the United States in 2023.
Trump in December directed U.S. forces to launch strikes against ISIS in Nigeria, though he released little detail then about the impact.
Nigeria has been battling multiple armed groups, including at least two affiliated with ISIS, as it has grappled with a multifaceted security crisis.
The United States in February sent troops to the West African nation to help advise its military and in March, the United States also deployed drones there after Trump alleged that Christians are being targeted in Nigeria’s security crisis.
The Friday night operation was the latest instance in a string of covert missions abroad that Trump has announced this year, starting with the stunning overnight raid in January to capture and remove Venezuela's then-leader Nicolás Maduro and whisk him to the United States, followed nearly two months later by the launch of strikes that kicked off the war with Iran.