BY FRONTLINE REPORTERS
The Presidency and the Defence Headquarters (DHQ) have clarified the controversy surrounding the killing of ISWAP commander Abu-Bilal Al-Minuki, insisting that the terrorist neutralised in the May 16, 2026 joint Nigeria–United States military operation was not the same individual earlier reported dead in 2024.
The clarification followed widespread reactions after former U.S. President Donald Trump announced on his Truth Social platform that Al-Minuki, described as ISWAP’s second-in-command globally, had been eliminated in a coordinated strike involving American and Nigerian forces. Trump reportedly labelled him “the most active terrorist in the world.”
Responding to questions over previous military reports, Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, said the 2024 claim resulted from mistaken identity during counterinsurgency operations in Kaduna State’s Birnin Gwari forest axis.
According to Onanuga, security agencies later discovered that the earlier suspect merely bore a similar name and was wrongly identified amid the complexity of ongoing military offensives. He noted that intelligence findings eventually showed that Birnin Gwari was never part of Al-Minuki’s operational territory.
He disclosed that the latest operation followed months of intensive Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR), backed by communications monitoring and phone intercepts that reportedly began in December 2025. Authorities, he said, initially planned to capture the terror leader alive, leading to extended surveillance activities across Abuja and Maiduguri before the final strike was approved.
Onanuga stressed that several layers of intelligence verification were conducted before the operation, adding that security agencies are fully certain of the slain commander’s identity. “There is no ambiguity,” he stated.
In a separate statement signed by Director of Defence Information, Major General Samaila Uba, the DHQ explained that similar names and aliases are common among ISWAP and Boko Haram fighters operating across the North East and Lake Chad Basin, often deliberately adopted to confuse security agencies and conceal identities.
The military further stated that the Abu-Bilal Al-Minuki killed in the May 16 operation was positively identified through human intelligence and technical surveillance as a high-ranking global operative within the Islamic State network, with links to terrorist financing and coordination activities across the Sahel region.
Describing the operation as a major breakthrough in ongoing counter-terrorism efforts, the Armed Forces of Nigeria reaffirmed its commitment to working with international allies to dismantle terrorist networks while urging the media and the public to rely only on official updates to avoid misinformation arising from identity mix-ups.
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2026-05-13