The Killing of Abu-Bilal al-Minuki and the U.S. Military’s Deepening Involvement in Nigeria

On May 15, the United States and Nigeria announced a joint operation that killed Abu-Bilal al-Minuki (also known as Abubakr Mainok or Abu Bakr al-Mainuki), a senior Islamic State commander in Nigeria. This is not the first time al-Minuki has been reported as killed by Nigerian forces, but the likely involvement of U.S. ground forces means that the United States was presumably able to prove al-Minuki was killed in the operation. U.S. and Nigerian forces followed up the operation with another on May 18 that the Nigerian military said killed 20 Islamic State members.

These operations are a sign of growing U.S. involvement in Africa’s most populous country, which has been grappling with a worsening Islamic State insurgency in its northern states for years. The United States and Nigeria seem willing to keep up the pressure, but success will likely require a sustained campaign.

Q1: Who was Abu-Bilal al-Minuki?

A1: Although President Donald Trump’s announcement seemed to suggest that al-Minuki was a foreign Islamic State fighter seeking to “hide in Africa,” al-Minuki is a Nigerian from the town of Mainok in Borno State. He first came to prominence as a commander in the group usually referred to as Boko Haram. After Boko Haram splintered in 2016, al-Minuki broke away and joined the faction that remained loyal to the Islamic State and is now known as the Islamic State–West Africa Province (ISWAP). Little is known about his role in Boko Haram before it joined the Islamic State, but Boko Haram expert Vincent Foucher has repeatedly described him as a top operational commander in the vicinity of Lake Chad around the time of the schism. Reporting on the trial of two Boko Haram members in Senegal also suggests that al-Minuki was influential within Boko Haram and trusted with handling significant financial transfers for the group before the schism.

Al-Minuki grew more prominent after the 2018 killing of ISWAP cofounder Mamman Nur. Nur and al-Minuki were rivals for influence within the organization, and the International Crisis Group wrote in 2019 that he and Mustafa Kirmima “emerged as new leading figures” within ISWAP after his death. However, Kirmima won out and dominated the group until he was killed on the orders of current amir Abu Musab al-Barnawi (born Habib Yusuf) in 2021. Despite Kirmima’s dominance of the group, Foucher alleged that al-Minuki had been named ISWAP’s finance chief in 2020, a testament to his continued power and influence within ISWAP. Separately, he was named second deputy amir in ISWAP during its formal merger with the Islamic State Sahel Province (ISSP, known at the time as the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara) at al-Barnawi’s request.

Q2: What was al-Minuki’s role in the broader Islamic State movement?

A2: By the time of his apparent death, al-Minuki had risen even further in the Islamic State’s West African and global organizations. In his announcement of the killing, President Trump described al-Minuki as “second in command of ISIS globally.” The source of President Trump’s claim is likely the assessment that al-Minuki had been named head of the Islamic State’s General Directorate of Provinces (GDP) after the killing of Abu Khadija in March 2025. The GDP is a critical administrative and decisionmaking center within the Islamic State organization, controlling the Islamic State’s global finances, providing operational guidance, and directing external operations. Its previous leaders were frequently also members of other high-level Islamic State institutions like the Shura Council and Delegated Committee, and some countries have assessed that al-Minuki had joined the Shura Council as of 2025, suggesting a similar role for al-Minuki.

If al-Minuki indeed headed the GDP, the development would have represented a major shift in the Islamic State’s organizational center of gravity to West Africa. Despite the decline in the activity of ISIS, all known GDP leaders had been ISIS members operating in the Levant rather than Africa. However, Africa has accounted for an increasing proportion of Islamic State violence as Middle Eastern and Western governments have dealt blow after blow to ISIS in its former heartland.

Even if he was not the head of the GDP or the Islamic State’s global “second in command,” al-Minuki and his longtime ally al-Barnawi probably led the Islamic State’s West African enterprise in concert. In 2023, the Biden administration designated al-Minuki a Specially Designated Global Terrorist for his role as a senior leader in the Islamic State’s West Africa office, Maktab al-Furqan. Since 2024, UN reports have called al-Minuki head of the Furqan office, as it is usually called, with al-Barnawi remaining head of ISWAP.

This arrangement made al-Minuki a key player in the world’s most active theater for Salafi-jihadism. The Furqan office is responsible for administering the activities of both ISWAP and ISSP and has recently encouraged greater cooperation between the two provinces. It also raises large amounts of money, although the extent to which it finances Islamic State operations elsewhere is unknown: Leading terrorist financing expert Jessica Davis noted in 2024 that there is little publicly available evidence of digital transfers from the Furqan office to other provinces.

Meanwhile, ISWAP is the most prolific producer of Islamic State propaganda, has claimed more attacks than any other province between July 2024 and June 2025 and has been on the offensive against the Nigerian government since 2025. It has temporarily overrun a variety of Nigerian military installations, including at least one so-called super camp, a consolidated base set up after the Nigerian military proved unable to prevent ISWAP from overrunning smaller military positions in previous years. ISSP is smaller and weaker than ISWAP, but it has also made important gains in recent years, most notably an attack on Niger’s international airport and the neighboring Air Base 101 in January 2026, possibly with the support of ISWAP operatives.

Q3: What are U.S. forces doing in Nigeria, and why does it matter?

A3: Since late 2025, the United States has gradually increased its support for the Nigerian military’s fight against Salafi-jihadist groups in the country. Until the operation against al-Minuki, the highest-profile action was a U.S. missile strike targeting supposed Islamic State locations in northwest Nigeria on December 25, 2025. That strike was preceded by high-level meetings in Washington in November, which led to intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance flights by U.S. aircraft launched from Ghana. In early February 2026, U.S. Africa Command said that a team of “specialists” was in the country. About a week later, Nigeria announced the arrival of about 100 U.S. forces to “train” Nigeria’s military and provide unspecified “specialized technical capabilities.” After another week, U.S. and Nigerian officials told Reuters that the deployment had expanded to 200 troops and that the United States had deployed unmanned aerial systems to the country. The two announced operations, however, mark an important shift in which the United States is now known to be involved in offensive operations in the country.

The original public rationale for U.S. operations in Nigeria was violence perpetrated against the country’s Christian communities, although many experts contest the idea that Christians are disproportionately targeted, arguing instead that attacks against Christians are part of a wider breakdown in the country’s security. The 2026 United States Counterterrorism Strategy adds that the administration’s “first [counterterrorism goal in Africa] is to guarantee that none of the Jihadi groups can build a base of operations that allows them to plot and execute attacks against the United States.” While ISWAP’s desire to conduct such attacks is highly uncertain, its status as one of the world’s most powerful Salafi-jihadist groups suggests that it could develop threatening external operations capabilities if it desired.

One potential downside of deepening U.S. involvement in Nigeria is that it could incentivize ISWAP to increasingly target U.S. interests. Al Shabaab, for example, has conducted attacks in an attempt to coerce Nairobi into ending its support for the Somali government. However, the risk of such attacks is low due to effective counterterrorism. While ISSP sympathizers were allegedly involved in recent small plots in Spain and Morocco, these plots were interrupted by national authorities, and U.S. counterterrorism capabilities are even more formidable.

Another is the increased risk to civilians. Amnesty International reported that at least 100 civilians were killed in a Nigerian airstrike on May 10, the latest in a series of airstrikes that apparently killed civilians in the country. At least one U.S. official has acknowledged a lack of intelligence assets dedicated to understanding militant networks in northern Nigeria, and Washington Post analysis suggests that the 2025 strikes were imprecise, possibly due to technical errors. The Trump administration has decreased restrictions on airstrikes and special operations raids, loosened limits on target selection, and eliminated Biden-era programs dedicated to reducing harm to civilians. While there have been no public allegations that civilians were killed in this month’s U.S.-Nigerian operations, the United States and Nigeria should take steps to ensure greater protection for civilians in northern Nigeria.

Q4: What does al-Minuki’s death mean for the future of the Islamic State?

A4: Killing terrorist and insurgent leaders has a mixed, ambiguous record of success. Some groups led by charismatic leaders or reliant on international alliances have experienced collapse or significant setbacks after the killing or capture of their leaders. Other groups—especially those with established bureaucracies, significant popular support, and religious ideology—survive or even prosper. In Islamic State expert Craig Whiteside’s account, the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in 2006 strengthened the group that would become the Islamic State by opening the space for a more bureaucratically-minded leader who helped institutionalize the group’s structure into the hierarchical Islamic State that tore across the Levant in 2014. After the United States killed the flailing Tehrik-e-Taliban Emir Mullah Fazlulah, Noor Wali Mehsud replaced him and set the group on a path toward making Pakistan the world’s most terrorism-affected country.

It is easy to imagine the al-Minuki killing going either way. There is some evidence that al-Minuki himself had a particularly international bent, meaning that his killing could increase friction between the Islamic State core and its Western African provinces. Foucher has alleged that al-Minuki sent fighters to Libya after his nominal superior turned down an Islamic State core request for reinforcements around 2016. He seems to have been both willing to engage in the Islamic State’s global mission while effectively navigating the violent politics of West Africa’s Salafi-jihadist scene. It will be difficult for a successor to so effectively strike that balance. The strikes may therefore decrease the risk of ISWAP engaging in external operations either because al-Minuki’s successor is less interested in them or because he is interested but cannot handle the group’s local politics.

His death also represents a major loss of operational competence, strategic acumen, and political capital for the group, which analysts have identified as a benefit of targeted killings. It could also undermine the growing coordination between ISSP and ISWAP if he were indeed critical in driving the two groups’ alignment.

However, al-Minuki’s death could also make ISWAP stronger in the long run. The number of al-Minuki’s former compatriots killed in intra-ISWAP conflicts suggests a poorly institutionalized succession process. Al-Minuki’s killing could force it to further institutionalize, increasing its longevity and lethality. Or ISWAP could splinter into fragments that include more violent or internationally oriented factions.

To capitalize on al-Minuki’s killing, the United States and Nigeria would be best served by keeping up the pressure, and the May 18 operation suggested that they plan to. While individual targeted killings rarely accomplish much, sustained campaigns can force terrorist groups to adapt in ways that harm their overall operational competence.

However, pressure is only likely to work if accompanied by a broader counterinsurgency campaign that cuts ISWAP off from its sources of support. But given the uncertainty associated with counterinsurgency and targeted killing campaigns as well as ISWAP’s current strength, the United States should be prepared for a prolonged effort rather than the type of “high-intensity but short campaign” the administration’s counterterrorism strategy envisions.

Alexander Palmer is a fellow in the Warfare, Irregular Threats, and Terrorism (WITT) Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

Special thanks to Madison Bruno for editing and publication support.