Fresh controversy has emerged over the reported killing of a senior commander of the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), Abu Bilal Minuki, also known as Abubakar Mainok, after Nigerian authorities had earlier declared him dead in 2024.
The confusion follows a new announcement made on Friday by both the President of the United States, Donald Trump, and Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, confirming that the notorious insurgent was killed during a joint military operation in the Lake Chad Basin.
The contradiction has sparked questions over the credibility of battlefield intelligence and the accuracy of repeated counterterrorism claims involving one of the most wanted commanders linked to the Islamic State network in West Africa.
According to reports by The Daily Crucible, the Nigerian Defence Headquarters had already announced Mainok’s death in April 2024 while briefing journalists on military operations conducted between January and March of that year.
At the time, the then Director of Defence Media Operations, Major General Edward Buba, listed Abu Bilal Minuki among several top insurgent leaders allegedly neutralised during coordinated offensives across northern Nigeria.
Buba identified him as the “Head of IS-Al Furqan Province (ISGS and ISWAP)” and said he was killed on February 21, 2024, during clearance operations targeting terrorist hideouts.
The military had described Mainok as a notorious insurgent linked to attacks around Birnin Gwari forest in Kaduna State and along the Abuja–Kaduna highway.
During the 2024 briefing, the Defence Headquarters also claimed that troops eliminated several other commanders, including Kachallah Damina, while recording major successes against terrorist groups nationwide.
“The armed forces are fighting a vicious enemy in the ongoing operations across the country,” Buba had said, noting that troops were aggressively tracking insurgents in their hideouts.
The military further disclosed that within the same period, troops killed 2,351 terrorists, arrested 2,308 suspects, and rescued 1,241 kidnapped victims.
However, in a dramatic twist two years later, Presidents Tinubu and Trump announced another successful operation said to have again eliminated Abu-Bilal Al-Manuki, also known as Abu-Mainok.
In a personally signed statement, Tinubu described the operation as a major breakthrough in Nigeria–United States security cooperation.
“Early assessments confirm the elimination of the wanted IS senior leader, Abu-Bilal Al-Manuki, also known as Abu-Mainok, along with several of his lieutenants, during a strike on his compound in the Lake Chad Basin,” Tinubu stated.
The Nigerian leader praised the joint operation and commended troops from both countries for what he called professionalism and courage in the fight against terrorism.
Trump also confirmed the operation on his Truth Social platform, describing Mainok as “the most active terrorist in the world.”
“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,” Trump wrote.
The US President further claimed that the insurgent was regarded as the global second-in-command of ISIS and had been under American sanctions since 2023.
“With his removal, ISIS’s global operation is greatly diminished,” Trump added.
The renewed announcement has now raised serious questions over whether the 2024 military report was inaccurate, whether another commander had been mistaken for Mainok, or whether the insurgent survived the earlier operation and later resurfaced under a different identity.
Security analysts say the conflicting claims highlight the difficulty of verifying deaths of high-profile terrorist leaders operating within remote conflict zones across the Lake Chad region.
