The Presidency has clarified reports surrounding the killing of Abu-Bilal Al-Manuki, a senior commander of the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), stating that earlier claims linking him to a 2024 military operation were based on mistaken identity.
Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, explained in a statement shared on 𝕏 on Saturday that although Al-Manuki’s name had previously appeared on lists of suspected terrorists killed during counterinsurgency operations in 2024 around the Birnin Gwari forest axis in Kaduna State, that information has now been found to be inaccurate.
According to him, security and intelligence agencies have since confirmed that the earlier listing was a misattribution arising from the complexities of ongoing counterterrorism operations.
Onanuga noted that Al-Manuki, also known by aliases such as Abu-Mainok or Abu-Bilal Al-Minuki, was wrongly assumed to have been eliminated in the earlier operations, adding that intelligence assessments now show the Birnin Gwari area was not within the commander’s actual operational zone.
The statement further explained that the most recent operation leading to Al-Manuki’s reported death was backed by months of sustained intelligence work, including surveillance, communications monitoring, and phone interception efforts that reportedly began in December 2025.
Security sources said the operation was the outcome of prolonged tracking involving both technical intelligence and human intelligence inputs, which helped map the movement of the target across several locations in northern Nigeria.
Authorities also disclosed that efforts were initially focused on capturing the suspect alive, with surveillance reportedly extending to areas including Abuja and Maiduguri in the days leading up to the final strike.
Officials maintained that the latest operation was carried out with a higher level of precision and verification compared to earlier engagements, stressing that multiple intelligence layers were used before authorising the action.
They insisted that unlike previous reports that later required correction, the current assessment leaves no uncertainty about the outcome of the operation.
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