Trump says Islamic State group leader was killed : NPR
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters aboard Air Force One, Friday, May 15, 2026, as he returns from a trip to Beijing, China.
Mark Schiefelbein/AP
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Mark Schiefelbein/AP
WASHINGTON — U.S. and Nigerian forces killed an Islamic State group leader in Nigeria during a mission Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump said.
Trump announced the joint operation in Africa’s most populous country in a late social media post that offered few details. He said Abu Bakr al-Mainuki was the Islamic State group’s second-in-command globally and “thought he might be hiding in Africa, but he didn’t know we had sources keeping us informed about what he was doing.”
Al-Mainuki was considered the 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.
Nigerian President Bola Tinubu confirmed the operation and said Al-Mainuki was killed alongside “several of his lieutenants, during a strike on his compound in the Lake Chad Basin.”
Born in Nigeria’s Borno province in 1982, al-Mainuki took over as head of ISIS’s West Africa branch after the group’s former leader in the region, Mamman Nur, was killed in 2018, according to the Counter Extremism Project, which tracks militant groups.
Al-Mainuki was based in the Sahel region, the monitoring group said, adding that it appears he fought in Libya when ISIS was active in the North African country more than a decade ago. It was sanctioned by the United States in 2023.
Trump, in his social media announcement, said Al-Mainuki was “second in command globally,” hiding in Africa, a claim that analysts say is irrelevant.
They claim that Al-Mainuki was the deputy of Abu Musab al-Barnawi, the head of the Islamic State’s West Africa province, who died in 2021. He is considered one of the main supporters of the formation of ISWAP after its split with Boko Haram in 2016.
“If confirmed, the killing of Al-Mainuki is huge because it is the first time a security agency has killed someone so senior in ISWAP,” said Malik Samuel, a senior researcher at Good Governance Africa specializing in insurgent groups in Nigeria.
“The risk of causing chaos within the group also exists because the operation had to be carried out in the heart of the fortified ISWAP base, which is very difficult to access.”
In December, Trump ordered U.S. forces to launch strikes against the Islamic State group in Nigeria, although he then gave few details about the impact.
The Nigerian military said the operation was a result of its “newly formed partnership and intelligence sharing efforts between the United States and Nigeria.” Samalia Uba, a military spokesperson, said in a statement that the operation also “disrupted a violent terrorist network that endangers Nigeria and the entire West African region.”
Nigeria is battling several armed groups, including at least two affiliated with ISIS, as it grapples with a multifaceted security crisis. ISIS-affiliated groups in Africa became among the most active militant groups on the continent following the collapse of the ISIS caliphate in Syria and Iraq in 2017.
In February, the United States sent troops to the West African country to help advise its military and in March it also deployed drones there after Trump claimed Christians were being targeted in Nigeria’s security crisis.
Friday night’s operation was the latest example in a series of covert overseas missions announced by Trump this year, beginning with the stunning nighttime raid in January to capture and expel Nicolás Maduro, then Venezuela’s leader, and take him to the United States, followed nearly two months later by launching strikes that sparked war with Iran.
