The federal government has clarified the controversy surrounding the killing of notorious Islamic State ISIS commander, Abu-Bilal Al-Manuki.
The clarification comes amid the reactions that have greeted President Donald Trump of the United State announcement that the ISIS commandeer was killed in a joint operation between US and Nigerian forces on Friday.
President Trump had announced, on Saturday, that the terrorist commander was killed in the early hours of of today during a joint operation. He had also appreciated the Nigerian government for the success of the operation, which he described as very difficult.
The announcement had quickly generated reactions from not a few Nigerians who said the ISIS commander cannot be declared killed twice, following the 2024 announcement by the Nigerian Defence Headquarters, DHQ, that Al Manuki had been neutralised.
The DHQ had declared him killed after a fierce military operations in Kaduna state with the Boko Haram insurgents, in which other fighters were said to have been taken out.
One of the reactions came from human right lawyer, Femi Falana, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, who said the ISIS commander had long been killed by the Nigerian Armed Forces, saying the claim by President Trump that he was killed on Saturday was untrue.
Reacting in a statement on Saturday Presidential spokesperson, Bayo Onanuga said Al-Manuki’s name wrongly appeared among the terrorists killed by Nigerian soldiers during military operations around the Birnin Gwari forest axis in Kaduna State in 2024.
However, he said security agencies later discovered that the identification was inaccurate.
Onanuga said the fact that the Birni Gwari area, where the ISIS commander was said to have been kiled by Nigerians, is not within his operation area, rendered the eralier claim that he had been killed unreliable.
According to him, the Nigerian intelligence community has now admitted that the earlier claim was a ruse, because Birni Gwari was not part of the ISIS leader operation area.
He stressed that “this time” the information that he has been neutralised is very credible, citing “multiple layers” of intelligence which confirmed that Al-Minuki has, indeed, been killed in the US, Nigerian joint military operation.
“Security officials now clarify that the earlier listing was a case of mistaken identity or misattribution in the fog of sustained counterinsurgency operations,” he said.
Adding that “Importantly, intelligence now confirms that the Birnin Gwari theatre was never within Al-Manuki’s established operational sphere, which negates the accuracy of the earlier assessment.
“Officials maintain that multiple layers of verification were applied before authorisation of the final kinetic action, making this operation distinct from earlier incidents in which battlefield assessments later required revision.
“In their assessment, ‘this time, there is no ambiguity,” Onanuga added.
He further stressed that security officials were “100 per cent certain” that Al-Manuki was the target eliminated in the operation.”
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