ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - US President Donald Trump on Friday said that US and Nigerian forces eliminated "the most active terrorist in the world" Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, whom he claimed was "second in command" of the Islamic State (ISIS) globally.

"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," the president wrote on Truth Social.

"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. He will no longer terrorize the people of Africa, or help plan operations to target Americans," he continued.

Minuki is listed by the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control as an alias of Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad ibn 'Ali, a Nigerian individual born in 1982 under sanctions for his involvement with the extremist group.

"With his removal, ISIS's global operation is greatly diminished. Thank you to the Government of Nigeria for your partnership on this operation. GOD BLESS AMERICA!" 

Nigeria has grappled with an insurgency by both ISIS' West Africa and Sahel Province components and the jihadist group Boko Haram in the country's north for years, with the Trump administration launching strikes on Christmas Day, 2025, in response to the targeting of Nigerian Christians by the aforementioned groups.

Jihadist factions, many who are affiliated with ISIS, have exploited weak borders and profound local poverty in the region to emerge as a transnational threat across Mali, Burkina Faso, northern Nigeria, Niger, and the Lake Chad Basin. 

Abuja has formed an intimate counterterrorism partnership with Washington in a bid to combat such actors, with 100 US personnel being deployed to the West African state in February to train and advise security forces.

In 2019, during the first Trump administration, US special operations forces conducted an operation in Syria's Idlib province that led to the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi amid extensive international efforts to track down and eliminate the group's top officials.