Secretary of War Pete Hegseth issued a sweeping warning to ISIS and its affiliates Saturday morning, declaring that the United States will pursue anyone who targets Americans or Christians anywhere in the world, as he detailed the overnight operation that killed Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, the man President Trump identified as the second-in-command of ISIS globally, in a joint strike carried out with Nigerian forces in Borno State.
President Trump announced the mission late Friday in a Truth Social post, writing that U.S. and Nigerian forces “flawlessly executed a meticulously planned and very complex mission to eliminate the most active terrorist in the world from the battlefield,” and that al-Minuki “thought he could hide in Africa, but little did he know we had sources who kept us informed on what he was doing.” Hegseth followed with a detailed account of the operation Saturday morning on X, providing the fullest picture yet of what was accomplished overnight and how the mission came together over months of preparation.
“Last night U.S. forces, in coordination with the Armed Forces of Nigeria, killed Abu-Bilal al-Minuki and other ISIS leaders,” Hegseth wrote, before tracing the operation back to a directive issued nearly six months earlier. “Back in November 2025, President Trump declared to the world that we will help protect Christians in Nigeria and instructed the Department of War to prepare for action. So, for months, we hunted this top ISIS leader in Nigeria who was killing Christians, and we killed him — and his entire posse.”
Hegseth was explicit about the chain of command that authorized and oversaw the mission. “In conjunction with Nigeria’s President, and at the direction of President Trump, U.S. Africa Command oversaw a precise operation to remove this terrorist,” he wrote, underscoring that the strike was the product of coordinated leadership at the highest levels of both governments rather than a unilateral or improvised action.
The Secretary then laid out al-Minuki’s specific role within the ISIS hierarchy, making clear that the strike removed far more than a single figurehead. “Abu-Bilal al-Minuki was the senior ISIS General Directorate of Provinces Emir — the number two for ISIS globally — responsible for overseeing the planning of attacks, directing hostage-taking and managing financial operations,” Hegseth wrote. He added that “the removal of him and other ISIS personnel makes Americans safer by further degrading ISIS’s ability to plan and carry out attacks that threaten the U.S. homeland, American citizens, and innocent civilians” — a framing that positioned the strike not merely as justice for past atrocities but as a concrete reduction in the threat facing Americans going forward.
Hegseth used the operation to make a broader point about the character and capability of U.S. forces. “Operations like last night’s demonstrate the exceptional lethality, patience and skill of U.S. forces, amplified alongside willing and capable partners, to address shared threats,” he wrote. The word patience was notable — an acknowledgment that the months-long hunt for al-Minuki required sustained intelligence work and deliberate planning before culminating in Friday’s strike.
He closed his statement with the warning that framed the entire operation in terms of a standing commitment rather than a singular event. “This should serve as a reminder that we will hunt down those who wish to harm Americans or innocent Christians, wherever they are.”
Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu confirmed the operation Saturday, calling it a “significant example of effective collaboration in the fight against terrorism” and saying early assessments confirmed the death of al-Minuki — also known as Abu-Mainok — along with several of his lieutenants in a strike on his compound in the Lake Chad Basin. The Nigerian Army said the precision air-land operation was carried out in Metele in Borno State, commencing at approximately 12:01 a.m. and concluding around 4 a.m., with no casualties or loss of assets on either side.
Al-Minuki, a Nigerian national, had been designated a “specially designated global terrorist” by the Biden administration in 2023, according to the U.S. Federal Register. The State Department identified him as a senior ISIS official based in the Sahel and a member of the General Directorate of Provinces — the administrative body responsible for providing financial and operational direction to ISIS affiliates around the world. Al-Minuki was born in Borno State, Nigeria, in 1982, according to the Office of Foreign Assets Control.
The Islamic State has been aggressively expanding across Africa, with over two-thirds of its global activity in the first half of 2025 recorded on the continent — a pivot that has seen the group increase recruitment, financial operations, and the coordination of violence across a broad geographic area. Borno State, where Friday’s strike took place, has been the epicenter of that violence for nearly two decades, with the conflict killing thousands and displacing roughly 2 million people. ISIS’s West Africa branch has specifically targeted Christian-majority villages, burning churches and abducting civilians for ransom, with IS Central regularly amplifying such attacks through its propaganda channels.
Hegseth’s account of the operation made clear that what unfolded Friday night was the conclusion of a deliberate, months-long effort — one set in motion by a presidential directive, sustained by patient intelligence work, and executed with precision by American and Nigerian forces working in close coordination. His closing words left no ambiguity about what the administration intends for those who have not yet been found.