US Africa Command Conducts Airstrikes in Northeastern Nigeria, Killing ISIS Leader

The U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) announced Monday it conducted additional airstrikes against the Islamic State in northeastern Nigeria on Sunday. The operation was coordinated with the Nigerian government.

AFRICOM confirmed no U.S. or Nigerian forces were harmed during the strikes. It’s estimated that at least 20 militants were killed in the operation.

This comes days after President Donald Trump said that a joint operation by U.S. and Nigerian forces killed a top leader of the ISIS group in Nigeria.

Trump wrote in a social media post that the mission in the early hours of Saturday targeted Abu Bakr al-Mainuki, who was part of the top leadership of the local IS chapter in West Africa.

Nigeria's government and military said the operation in the Lake Chad Basin, a stronghold of Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), was the result of a recently formed partnership with the U.S government.

Al-Mainuki was born in 1982 in Mainok, or Mainuki, a village in Nigeria’s northeastern Borno, the heart of an insurgency crisis following the formation of the Boko Haram militant group around 2009.

He became one of the key commanders of ISWAP following its split from Boko Haram, and was a deputy to Abu Musab al-Barnawi, the ISWAP leader who was reported to have died in 2021.

A Nigerian military spokesperson said he was a “key ISIS operational and strategic figure” who was central to the group’s media operations, finances and weapons development.

The military also said that recent intelligence indicated he might have been appointed as “Head of the General Directorate of States,” making him second-in-command within the global IS hierarchy, a claim also made by Trump but disputed by some analysts.

In 2023, the U.S. Department of State listed him as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist.”

The Nigerian government acknowledged that U.S. intelligence and cooperation were key to the operation. It was a significant development after the countries' relations reached their nadir last year, when Trump accused the government of the West African nation of “Christian genocide."

The government repeatedly denied the persecution of Christians and engaged the U.S. government, leading to military cooperation. In February, the U.S. sent troops to Nigeria after an airstrike targeted IS last December.

Government officials had previously said U.S. troops were restricted to advisory and training roles, but this weekend's operation marks a new phase, according to analysts.

“It would demonstrate to them (militants) that the American-Nigerian operation has really picked up,” Bulama Burkati, a security analyst on sub-Saharan Africa, said.

“We know the Nigerian forces lack the basic capacity to fight violent extremist groups, especially in places like the Lake Chad region, which is densely forested.”

Several armed groups operate in the resource-rich four-country Lake Chad region, funding their operations by taxing local communities. The region's landscape provides adequate cover for the groups to avoid military strikes.