WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump announced Friday, May15, 2026 that Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, the second-in-command of ISIS worldwide, has been killed in a joint U.S.-Nigerian military operation, a major blow to the terrorist group’s leadership structure.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump hailed the mission as “flawlessly executed” and “meticulously planned,” carried out at his direction.
“Tonight, at my direction, brave American forces and the Armed Forces of Nigeria flawlessly executed a meticulously planned and very complex mission to eliminate the most active terrorist in the world from the battlefield,” Trump wrote. “Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, second in command of ISIS globally, thought he could hide in Africa, but little did he know we had sources who kept us informed on what he was doing.”
Trump did not provide details on the method of attack, whether via airstrike or ground assault, nor the specific location where al-Minuki was targeted.
The Nigerian national, born in 1982 in Borno State, had been designated as a “specially designated global terrorist” by the Biden administration in 2023. According to the Office of Foreign Assets Control, al-Minuki was placed under U.S. sanctions that same year for his ties to the Islamic State group, which maintains a significant presence across parts of West Africa.
Al-Minuki was based in the Sahel and served as a senior leader within ISIS’s General Directorate of Provinces, an administrative body that provides operational guidance and funding to the group’s affiliates worldwide, according to the Counter Extremism Project. He led officials in the Lake Chad division and had reportedly held a regional commander position within ISIS since the 2018 execution of Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) leader Mamman Nur.
Described as a hardline militant, al-Minuki had a contentious history with Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau. At one point between March 2015 and early 2016, when Shekau rejected an ISIS request to send fighters to Libya, al-Minuki, then serving as ISWAP’s Lake Chad area commander, dispatched fighters anyway, further deepening the rift between the factions.
Trump thanked the Nigerian government for its partnership. The commendation comes after Trump had previously scrutinized Nigeria over allegations of Christian persecution, claims the African nation’s government has denied.
His death marks one of the most significant blows to ISIS’s global command in recent years, though the White House has not yet released further operational details.
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