The Assassination of al-Minoki: Where Does the Policy of Decapitation Lead?
Do organizations end with the assassination of their leaders? This question was raised by the world after the killings of Osama bin Laden and al-Baghdadi, and it resurfaces today with Trump’s announcement of eliminating the second-in-command of ISIS at the heart of Africa[1] in the Lake Chad region. But before analyzing the event as a victory or a failure, the real question is: what does America actually want from these strikes? And have the organizations already built their immunity against them before they even began?
Perhaps we must first understand the context of this operation, which falls within a growing American trend toward reinforcing intelligence and military presence in West Africa and the continent as a whole. Africa has become the new center of gravity for ISIS activity following its decline in Iraq and Syria this comes after Nigeria’s Ministry of Defense announced in February 2026 the arrival of approximately two hundred American military advisors, along with the deployment of surveillance drones[2]. If this signals anything, it is that the strike was the fruit of a logistical and intelligence infrastructure built by the United States over months, not a spontaneous act.
From Boko Haram to the “West Africa Province”
To understand al-Minoki’s significance[3], one must understand the transformation that jihadist groups in Nigeria underwent following the split of the Islamic State West Africa Province from Boko Haram. The man described by American officials as a pivotal figure in ISIS and its financing – not merely a name on a terrorism list illustrates the evolution of the “West Africa Province” from insurgent movements rooted in the legacy of Boko Haram. He was responsible for overseeing attack planning and managing the organization’s financial operations globally[4]. While calling him the “second-in-command” is not entirely precise, within the organization’s hierarchy he had become the Emir of the General Directorate of the organization’s provinces – which is why they refer to him as such. Beyond that, he oversaw what is known as the Al-Sadiq Office, the organization’s financial apparatus, and was tasked with managing cross-border financial transfers[5]. Al-Minoki joined Boko Haram, then transitioned to the ISIS-aligned faction led by Abu Musab al-Barnawi, with whom they subsequently established the West Africa Province – one of the organization’s provinces in Africa.
When the split occurred within Boko Haram in 2016 between the faction of Abu Bakr Shekau and the ISIS-loyal West Africa Province led by Abu Musab al-Barnawi, it represented a rivalry between two different models for managing jihadist organizations. Shekau relied on open violence, charismatic rhetoric, and the indiscriminate targeting of individuals regardless of religion, while the West Africa Province sought to build a more institutionalized model based on local governance, administrative discipline, and integration into the global ISIS structure[6]. Within this framework, the organization began adopting tactics more closely aligned with ISIS patterns in Iraq and Syria: focused nighttime raids on military positions, the use of rapid-mobile units, and the development of field intelligence networks.
While al-Barnawi represented the military and political face of the organization, Maman Nur[7] played a significant role in linking the Nigerian branch to the international structure of ISIS – particularly in organizational matters and cross-border communications. Al-Barnawi’s influence later declined; his fate, whether alive or dead, remains unknown to this day, which created a vacuum within the circle that once connected the West Africa Province to the organization’s international network.
Lake Chad: Geography as a Productive Force:
Al-Minoki’s rise is also tied to geopolitical shifts in the Lake Chad Basin, which has transformed into an ideal environment for the repositioning of jihadist organizations. The complex geography of the lake with its islands, waterways, and overlapping borders between Nigeria, Chad, Niger, and Cameroon has made it a space nearly impossible to bring under full security control.
The presence of the organization’s leadership within this region reflects a strategic understanding of geography as an instrument of protection, repositioning, and the linking of smuggling networks and movement between the Sahel and West Africa. The weakness of the states surrounding the lake, and the entanglement of the economy with armed activity, further provided the organization with an environment conducive to its survival.
It was within this context that the joint American-Nigerian operation in mid-May 2026 was carried out described as an attempt to strike one of the most important organizational nodes within ISIS’s African network. The operation, executed regardless of the precise method on the islands of Lake Chad with the participation of AFRICOM (the United States Africa Command), likely reflects Washington’s realization that Africa has become the organization’s most active theater following its collapse in the Levant. Nearly 85% of the organization’s activity in the first quarter of 2026 was concentrated in Africa[8]; the number of fighters in the Lake Chad region is estimated at 4,000–7,000[9], whose operations have led to the deaths of 40,000 people and the displacement of two million[10] through IEDs and drones, a development unprecedented in the organization’s military capabilities.
Despite the military character of the joint operation, the objectives of America’s assassination policy sometimes extend beyond the idea of the final elimination of organizations. The United States understands, through its long experience with al-Qaeda and ISIS, that assassinating leaders does not automatically lead to the collapse of organizations — yet it continues this strategy because it may achieve political, psychological, and deterrent objectives.
From another angle, the manner of the announcement revealed dimensions no less significant than the event itself. When the American president chooses to announce on his platform “Truth Social” at midnight, before any official statement from either the Pentagon or Nigeria’s Ministry of Defense and opens with the logic of personalization: “at my direction,” as though to convey that the victory is individual rather than institutional. This language, according to political discourse analysis theory, places Trump’s rhetoric within the category of the leader’s speech rather than that of a head of state: institutional discourse distributes credit across the entire system, while populist discourse centers on a single individual through the deployment of social media and performative formulations[11]. He used phrasings that produce political content from military material more than they offer an operational report – describing al-Minoki as the most “active terrorist in the world,” and closing his post with “God Bless America.”
As for the significance of the choice of platform and timing together: the primary audience for this announcement was neither the international community nor security partners, but rather the domestic electoral base – which reinforces the reading that the assassination was a political event first, and a security event second.
The most telling evidence of the limits of an assassination policy alone in claiming victory lies in what the organizations’ responses have revealed since their founding. When bin Laden was assassinated, al-Qaeda did not collapse or fall silent – it issued a statement described as a call for continuity, affirming that the organization was not built to die with the death of its leader[12]. When al-Baghdadi was killed, ISIS waited days before issuing its statement described not as a eulogy but as a threat: “Do not rejoice too much, and do not grow arrogant”[13]. This systematic pattern in responding to assassinations, particularly those of leaders, indicates that these organizations do not enter a crisis when they lose their leadership – they may, in fact, transform the loss into a tool for mobilization.
Deeper still, this immunity was not built in response to American assassinations – it preceded them, and was designed in anticipation of them. Jihadist ideology redefines death from defeat to martyrdom, from an ending to a beginning. This became evident after al-Baghdadi’s death, when it was said: “If al-Baghdadi dies, there are tens of thousands of al-Baghdadis”[14] – an expression of a deeply rooted intellectual structure that organizations had already instilled in their members. In this sense, America is waging a war with the weapon of assassination, while the organization had fortified itself against that very weapon before the first shot was fired.
In this sense, the United States and jihadist organizations are fighting two entirely different wars: Washington wages the war of “cutting off the head” by targeting leaders and declaring victory, while the organizations wage the war of “a self-reproducing ideological structure” – where one leader is replaced by another, and loss is reframed within a narrative of continuity.
For this reason, the assassination of al-Minoki may disrupt ISIS networks in West Africa for a time – but it does not, on its own, answer the more important question: how can one defeat the intellectual and organizational structure that enables these organizations to perpetually reproduce themselves?
[1]Donald Trump, Truth Social, May 16, 2026, accessed May 20, 2026. Available at: https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/116582139808210458
[2]Majemite Jaboro, “Strategic deep dive: The 200 U.S. advisers in Nigeria: What it means, what it changes — and what it does not,” Businessday NG, March 17, 2026, accessed May 20, 2026. Available at: https://businessday.ng/opinion/article/strategic-deep-dive-the-200-u-s-advisers-in-nigeria-what-it-means-what-it-changes-and-what-it-does-not/
[3]Abu Bilal al-Minoki hails from the town of Minok and worked as a barber — a detail that highlights one of the first paradoxes of his story: his trajectory was not the product of an exceptional personal background, but of his environment. Decades of poverty and the absence of state authority in Borno State made joining Boko Haram and the West Africa Province a realistic “career path” for young men with no other options.
[4]International Crisis Group, Facing the Challenge of the Islamic State in West Africa Province, Africa Report No. 273, May 16, 2019, accessed May 20, 2026. Available at: https://www.crisisgroup.org/rpt/africa/nigeria/273-facing-challenge-islamic-state-west-africa-province
[5]7AL website, “Who is Abu Bilal al-Minoki, whose killing Trump announced?”, 7AL, May 16, 2026, accessed May 20, 2026. Available at: https://2u.pw/cOAwPP
[6]International Crisis Group, Facing the Challenge of the Islamic State in West Africa Province, Africa Report No. 273, May 16, 2019. Available at: https://www.crisisgroup.org/sites/default/files/273-facing-the-challenge.pdf
[7]Maman Nur: one of the most prominent historical figures within the faction that broke away from Boko Haram and aligned with ISIS; he is regarded as one of the organizational minds who contributed to the founding of the Islamic State in West Africa Province
[8]Financial Times, “US parks dozens of military aircraft at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport,” May 20, 2026. Available at: https://www.ft.com/content/39c5e4d0-e9a8-4c76-977c-baa4319b5818
[9]National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), “ISIS–West Africa,” U.S. Department of the Director of National Intelligence, accessed May 22, 2026. Available at: https://www.dni.gov/nctc/terrorist_groups/isis_west_africa.html
[10]Remadji Hoinathy, “Lake Chad Basin’s counter-terrorism must adapt to defeat Boko Haram,” Institute for Security Studies (ISS Africa), accessed May 22, 2026. Available at: https://issafrica.org/pscreport/psc-insights/lake-chad-basin-s-counter-terrorism-must-adapt-to-defeat-boko-haram
[11]Van Aelst, Peter, Tamir Sheafer, and James Stanyer. “The Personalization of Mediated Political Communication: A Review of Concepts, Operationalizations and Key Findings.” Journalism 13, accessed May 18, 2026. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/239775336_The_Personalization_of_Mediated_Political_Communication_A_Review_of_Concepts_Operationalizations_and_Key_Findings
[12]Critical Threats Project, Reza Jan, “Al-Qaed a Speaks: Statement Confirms Osama bin Laden’s Death,” Critical Threats, May 7, 2011, accessed May 21, 2026. Available at: https://www.criticalthreats.org/analysis/al-qaeda-speaks-statement-confirms-osama-bin-ladens-death
[13]NPR correspondent Jane Arraf, “Syrians React to Death of ISIS Leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,” NPR, October 28, 2019, accessed May 22, 2026. Available at: https://www.npr.org/2019/10/28/774178768/syrians-react-to-death-of-isis-leader-abu-bakr-al-baghdadi
[14]Ibid.