Time.news – Fighters belonging to the jihadist group of the Islamic Province of West Africa (Iswap) allegedly killed Wednesday night in one armed clash in the Sambisa forest, in the northeastern state of Borno on the border between Nigeria and Cameroon, Abubakar Shekau, leader of the rival group Boko Haram.
The news is circulating in the main local media, after being first reported by the Nigerian investigative journalism site HumAngle. According to reconstructions reported by the Nigerian media, which however specify that they have no confirmation on the matter, a group of Iswap fighters broke into the stronghold of Boko Haram in the forest of Sambisa tonight. After a firefight that lasted several hours with Shekau’s bodyguards, the leader of Boko Haram would have been captured by the attackers, who would have asked him to order the surrender to the fighters loyal to his insignia and to declare loyalty (bai’a) to Iswap.
Shekau, who secretly wore an explosive vest, blew himself up along with those present. Shekau came to the helm of Boko Haram in 2009 following the death of the group’s founder, Mohammed Yusuf.
Several times previously (in 2009, 2014, 2015 and 2017) the news of his death was reported by the Nigerian and international media, later denied by Shekau himself through the publication of videos in which he claimed to be alive and well. health.
Considered the most serious current threat to security in Nigeria, the Boko Haram group (in the Hausa language “Western education is a sin”) has its usual area of operations in the northeastern region of the country, where it started as a school of Islamic matrix until it developed as an armed radical group. Beginning in late 2008 the group started a fight against the federal government with the aim of establish an Islamic state in northern Nigeria, carrying out an almost daily series of attacks on government buildings and Christian places of worship that have caused the deaths of thousands of people.
Under the leadership of Shekau, in March 2015 the Boko Haram group declared its affiliation with the jihadist organization of the Islamic State (Isis), that the following year will indicate Abu-Musab al-Barnawi as the new leader of the group: a decision rejected by Shekau himself and which led to the split into two factions, the first which has kept the name of Boko Haram and has been led so far by Abubakar Shekau and the second that took the name of the Islamic Province of West Africa, precisely Iswap.
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