By Dennis Okechukwu
The Presidency has defended claims that senior Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) commander Abu-Bilal Al-Manuki was killed in a recent joint Nigerian-American military operation, dismissing public scepticism as premature and unfounded.
In a State House press statement issued on Saturday, presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga said intelligence and military authorities were “100 per cent certain” that the operation successfully neutralised the insurgent leader, also known as Abu-Mainok or Abu-Bilal Al-Minuki.
The statement followed controversies surrounding reports of Al-Manuki’s death, with critics pointing out that his name had appeared among insurgent commanders allegedly killed during operations in 2024 around the Birnin Gwari forest axis in Kaduna State.
However, security sources clarified that the earlier report resulted from mistaken identity and inaccurate battlefield assessment, noting that Birnin Gwari was never part of Al-Manuki’s known operational territory.
According to the Presidency, the latest operation was backed by months of coordinated intelligence gathering involving Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR), communications monitoring and phone intercepts dating back to December 2025.
Security officials disclosed that intelligence agencies had tracked Al-Manuki across several locations in northern Nigeria, including Abuja and Maiduguri, while initially attempting to capture him alive before the final operation was authorised.
The statement said the operation involved “multiple layers of verification” and extensive target validation before the strike was carried out, distinguishing it from previous counterterrorism operations where initial battlefield reports later proved inaccurate.
The Presidency argued that doubts surrounding the operation ignored the complex realities of modern counterterrorism efforts, where insurgent leaders often operate under multiple aliases and move across difficult terrain and civilian-populated areas.
It also referenced past global counterterrorism cases involving high-profile extremist leaders such as Abubakar Shekau and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, whose deaths were at different times wrongly reported before later confirmations.
According to the statement, such incidents reflect the evolving nature of intelligence operations rather than outright operational failure.
The Presidency warned that dismissing what it described as credible joint military successes could undermine public confidence, operational morale and ongoing counterterrorism campaigns involving Nigerian forces and foreign intelligence partners.
Officials maintained that the operation against Al-Manuki represented a major intelligence-driven success against the Islamic State network operating in the region.