{"id":646240,"date":"2026-05-16T06:48:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T06:48:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/646240\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T06:48:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T06:48:14","slug":"trump-says-islamic-state-second-in-command-killed-by-us-and-nigerian-forces-islamic-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/646240\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump says Islamic State \u2018second in command\u2019 killed by US and Nigerian forces | Islamic State"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump has said US and Nigerian forces killed the \u201csecond in command\u201d global leader of the Islamic State<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cTonight, at my direction, brave American forces and the Armed Forces of Nigeria<\/a> flawlessly executed a meticulously planned and very complex mission to eliminate the most active terrorist in the world from the battlefield,\u201d the US president said on his Truth Social platform on Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbu-Bilal al-Minuki, second in command of ISIS globally, thought he could hide in Africa<\/a>, but little did he know we had sources who kept us informed on what he was doing,\u201d Trump added.<\/p>\n

Al-Minuki had been placed under US sanctions in 2023 for ties to the Islamic State group.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe will no longer terrorize the people of Africa, or help plan operations to target Americans,\u201d Trump said. \u201cWith his removal, ISIS\u2019s global operation is greatly diminished.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump thanked the government of Nigeria for its \u201cpartnership\u201d on the operation, while not disclosing exactly where it took place or the form of attack involved.<\/p>\n

Al-Minuki, a Nigerian national, was designated as a \u201cspecially designated global terrorist\u201d by the former Biden administration in 2023, according to the US federal register. At the time the state department called him a Sahel-based IS senior leader and part of its general directorate of provinces, the group\u2019s administrative body that provides \u201coperational guidance and funding around the world\u201d.<\/p>\n

Trump has previously accused Nigeria of failing to protect Christians<\/a> from Islamist militants in the north-west.<\/p>\n

Nigeria denies discriminating against any religion, saying its security forces target armed groups that attack both Christians and Muslims.<\/p>\n

The US carried out strikes targeting Islamic State-linked militants in Nigeria in December. Since then, Washington has deployed drones and 200 troops to provide training and intelligence support to the Nigerian military against Islamic State and al Qaeda-linked insurgencies that are spreading across west Africa.<\/p>\n

The US forces were operating in a strictly non-combat role, Nigerian military officials said earlier this year.<\/p>\n

With Agence France-Presse and Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump has said US and Nigerian forces killed the \u201csecond in command\u201d global leader of the Islamic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":646241,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,451,3,452,453],"class_list":["post-646240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=646240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/646241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=646240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=646240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=646240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}