{"id":12899,"date":"2026-05-16T15:23:33","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T15:23:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2026\/05\/16\/trump-says-isis-second-in-command-killed-in-africa-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T15:23:33","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T15:23:33","slug":"trump-says-isis-second-in-command-killed-in-africa-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2026\/05\/16\/trump-says-isis-second-in-command-killed-in-africa-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump says ISIS second-in-command killed in Africa – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

President Donald Trump said late Friday that a top Islamic State group commander has been killed in Africa in a joint operation with Nigeria\u2019s armed forces.<\/p>\n

Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, the second-in-command of the militant group, was killed, Trump said in a post on Truth Social.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cTonight, at my direction, brave American forces and the Armed Forces of Nigeria flawlessly executed a meticulously planned and very complex mission,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

Nigerian President Bola Tinubu confirmed the operation and said al-Minuki was killed alongside \u201cseveral of his lieutenants, during a strike on his compound in the Lake Chad Basin.\u201d<\/p>\n

The \u201chighly complex precision air-land operation\u201d was carried out during three hours of darkness early Saturday, according to Nigerian military officials.<\/p>\n

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth tied the operation to a previous instruction from Trump<\/a> to \u201chelp protect Christians in Nigeria,\u201d adding: \u201cFor months, we hunted this top ISIS leader in Nigeria who was killing Christians, and we killed him \u2014 and his entire posse.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThis should serve as a reminder that we will hunt down those who wish to harm Americans or innocent Christians, wherever they are.\u201d<\/p>\n

No U.S. service members were harmed in the operation, according to the U.S. military\u2019s Africa Command. The force\u2019s commander, U.S. Air Force Gen. Dagvin Anderson, said the operation alongside Nigeria \u201cwas made possible through the cooperation and coordination of our forces in recent months.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Islamic State group, also known as ISIS, has wreaked havoc in Iraq, Syria and other parts of the world where supporters have carried out terror attacks.<\/p>\n

Its elusive leader<\/a>, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, was killed in 2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Abu Hafs al Qurayshi was named leader of the group in August 2023, the U.S. Congressional Research Service said in a report.<\/p>\n

In 2023, the U.S. State Department designated al-Minuki as a \u201cspecially designated global terrorist,\u201d which imposes sanctions on any property in the U.S. and restricts transactions.<\/p>\n

While the Islamic State suffered military setbacks and the loss of a stronghold in Syria<\/a>, last year\u2019s annual U.S. threat assessment<\/a> said it \u201cremains the world\u2019s largest Islamic terrorist organization.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2024, a spokesman for the group \u201cpublicly hailed the group\u2019s Africa expansion,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump said late Friday that a top Islamic State group commander has been killed in Africa in a joint operation with Nigeria\u2019s armed forces. Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, the second-in-command of the militant group, was killed, Trump said in a post on Truth Social. \u201cTonight, at my direction, brave American forces and the Armed Forces […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12900,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}