US and Nigeria: we killed the number two of Isis

NAIROBI - The United States and Nigeria have claimed the killing of Islamic State leader Abu-Bilal Al-Manuki, also known as Abu-Mainok, in a 'precision' blitz launched near the Lake Chad basin: the border territory between Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad that is one of the armed groups' strongholds in the region. In a post on Truth, his social network, Trump identifies Abu-Mainok as 'Isis' number two globally' and stresses that his death has 'greatly diminished' the jihadist network's operational capabilities on an African and global scale.

Nigerian President Bola Tinubu confirmed the operation, praising it as an 'example of effective collaboration' between Washington and Abuja on the security emergency that pervades Africa's most populous country. The two governments strengthened their collaboration in December after a wave of US air force raids against 'terrorist targets' in northern Nigeria.

Since the beginning of the year, the United States has deployed a total contingent of 300 military personnel from its U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) division to 'train' local security forces in an attempt to stem an increasingly widespread terrorist expansion in the country. According to data from the Global terrorism index, an annual report by the Institute for economics and peace, Nigeria has seen the largest increase in terrorist casualties on a global scale: +46% between 2024 and 2025, with a jump from 513 to 780 in the space of a year.

Trump spoke of Abu-Mainok as a terrorist 'hiding in Africa', but his power and political ascendancy are rooted in his country of birth: Nigeria, one of the most alarming frontiers for the proliferation of armed groups affiliated with Islamist networks. Abu-Mainok, born in 1982, had been on the US State Department's list of 'designated terrorists' since 2023 and was one of the most influential leaders of the Islamic State in the West African province: the branch of Isis that has been operating in the region for a good decade and contends for territorial primacy with the Islamist nebula of Boko Haram. The two formations have experienced some collaboration, including the joint attack on 9 April on the Nigerian military base in Benisheikh. But they remain adversarial, weighing down and entangling the counter-offensive at the heart of Tinubu's agenda and his alliance with Trump.

In the immediate term, and if confirmed, the neutralisation of the Isis leader can only be 'a political success for President Tinubu', explains Taiwo Adebayo of the Institute for Security Studies. The problem, Adebayo adds, is that "terrorism is gaining a foothold in Nigeria" and overflowing into the "western border areas with Niger and Benin": one of the ramifications of the so-called spill-over effect, the contagion effect of terrorist violence also manifested in the expansion of armed groups in the Sahel towards the coast and ports of West Africa.