Boko Haram leader Shekau kills self in failed supremacy battle with rival sect, ISWAP – Report

Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, is dead, HumAngle is reporting.

According to the news platform, the incident occurred on Wednesday evening following the invasion of the terror group’s stronghold in the Sambisa forest area by a column of Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) fighters.

ISWAP, which had broken away from the Shekau-led Boko Haram faction in 2016 after pledging allegiance to the Islamic State (ISIS), raided the group’s hideout using multiple gun trucks.

Shekau’s enclave was tracked down by ISWAP using its forces based in the Timbuktu Triangle. His fighters were killed in the process, followed by a long gunfire exchange between the invading group and Shekau’s bodyguards.

HumAngle gathered that after his bodyguards were subdued, Shekau surrendered and engaged in an hours-long meeting with the ISWAP fighters.

During the parley, he was asked to voluntarily relinquish power and order his fighters in other areas to declare bai’a (allegiance) to ISWAP’s authority. They had expected Shekau to issue a statement.

Sources within the insurgency, however, said that Shekau who secretly had a suicide vest on eventually blew himself up alongside everyone present during the negotiations.

The identities of the people within ISWAP’s leadership who lost their lives to the explosion remain unclear at this time.

Newsclickng.com gathered that Shekau had been the leader of Boko Haram since 2009 following the death of the group’s founder, Mohammed Yusuf. He had been rumoured to have been killed at least four times between July 2009 and August 2015.

In August 2016, the Nigerian Air Force claimed he had been “fatally wounded” by military bombardments, but the terror group released a video only a month later showing he was alive and in good health.

The Defence Headquarters could not confirm the killing of Shekau, Nigeria’s most wanted terrorist as at the time of filing this report.

Acting Director Defence Media Operations, Brigadier General Benard Onyeuko, said the military cannot confirm the development yet.

The DHQ had while defending repeated claims of killing of Shekau by troops, explained that ‘Shekau’ is a mere title bestowed on the leader of the group and not a name of an individual.

Meanwhile, Nigerian military has placed all Borno State Commands of the Nigerian Army and Air Force on alert, over possible movement of dislodged insurgents.