Washington– president Donald Trump US and Nigerian forces said they killed a leader of the group Islamic State group In Nigeria on a mission carried out on Friday.
Trump announced the joint operation in Africa’s most populous country in a late-night social media post that offered few details. He said that Abu Bakr Al-Minuki was the second-in-command of ISIS globally, and “he thought he could be hiding in Africa, but he did not know that we had sources who told us what he was doing.”
Al-Minuki was seen as a key figure in organizing and financing ISIS, and was planning attacks against the United States and its interests, according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to share sensitive information.
Al-Minoki, who was born in Borno County, Nigeria in 1982, took over the leadership of the ISIS branch in West Africa after the killing of the organization’s former leader in the region, Mamman Nur, in 2018, according to the Countering Extremism Project, which tracks armed groups.
The monitoring group said that Al-Minuki was stationed in the Sahel region, adding that he was believed to have fought in Libya when ISIS was active in the North African country more than a decade ago. The United States imposed sanctions on him in 2023.
Trump In December, American forces were directed to set off Strikes against ISIS in Nigeria, although few details have been published about the impact.
Nigeria is fighting several armed groups, including at least two linked to ISIS, as it faces a multi-faceted security crisis.
the In February, the United States sent troops to the West African country To help advise her army and in March, The United States has also deployed drones there After Trump claimed that Christians It is being targeted In the security crisis in Nigeria.
Friday night’s operation was the latest in a series of secret overseas missions announced by Trump this year, starting with the stunning overnight raid in January to capture, remove and transfer Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro to the United States, followed nearly two months later by launching the strikes that started the war with Iran.
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Associated Press writers Konstantin Torobin in Washington and Sami Magdy in Cairo contributed to this report.