US and Nigerian forces have killed a senior leader of the so-called Islamic State group (IS) in Nigeria, Donald Trump has said.
The US president announced the joint operation in Africa’s most populous country in a social media post on Friday night that offered few details.
Mr Trump said Abu Bakr al-Mainuki was second-in-command of IS 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”.
Al-Mainuki was viewed as the key figure in the organisation and financing of IS, and had been plotting attacks against the United States and its interests, according to an official.
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 the helm of the IS 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 militant groups.
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Al-Mainuki was based in the Sahel area, the monitoring group said, adding that it is believed that he fought in Libya when IS was active in the North African nation more than a decade ago. He was sanctioned by the US in 2023.
In December, Mr Trump directed US forces to launch strikes against IS in Nigeria, though he released few details then about their impact.
Nigeria has been battling multiple armed groups, including at least two affiliated with IS, as it has grappled with a multi-faceted security crisis.
IS affiliates in Africa have emerged as some of the continent’s most active militant groups following the collapse of the IS caliphate in Syria and Iraq in 2017.
The US in February sent troops to the West African nation to help advise its military and in March, America also deployed drones there after Mr 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 Mr Trump has announced this year, starting with the stunning overnight raid in January to capture and remove Venezuela’s then-leader Nicolas Maduro and whisk him to the US, followed nearly two months later by the launch of strikes that kicked off the war with Iran.