Boko Haram confirms the death of its leader Abubakar Shekau

Abubakar Shekau, leader of Boko Haram for more than a decade, in a video capture.AFP PHOTO / BOKO HARAM

The Nigerian jihadist group Boko Haram has confirmed the death of its leader, Abubakar Shekau, and has accused the branch of the Islamic State in West Africa (Iswap) of being responsible for his death, in a video sent this Wednesday to the Agence France Press. The person who conveys the message on the tape is Bakura Modu, nicknamed

Sahaba

, Shekau's well-known lieutenant who presents himself as the new leader of the group and calls on his militiamen to take revenge for the death of his predecessor.

The new head of Boko Haram, who until now was identified as one of Shekau's closest collaborators in Lake Chad, assures in Arabic that he died as a “martyr” in the fighting that confronted Iswap and points directly to Abu Musab al Barnawi, the leader of this group, as the "perverse aggressor" and responsible for Shekau's death.

This announcement confirms the rumors and unverified news that began to circulate last May about the death of the leader of Boko Haram and opens a new stage of internal reorganization in the jihadism of northern Nigeria, according to experts.

The first information was published in mid-May on the Nigerian news portal

HumAngle

and it claimed that Shekau had immolated himself with an explosive vest when he was going to be detained by Iswap fighters after intense fighting in the Sambisa forest, fiefdom Head of Boko Haram.

This version was confirmed in a leaked audio in early June in which a voice identified as Al Barnawi's assures that Shekau "killed himself by detonating an explosive."

However, the precedents surrounding this bloody terrorist leader, who in the last 10 years was presumed dead on at least five occasions, recommended prudence and the regional and western intelligence services and the Nigerian authorities themselves have so far not confirmed the death. News.

Abubakar Shekau assumed leadership of Boko Haram in 2010 following the death the previous year of the jihadist group's founder, Mohamed Yussuf, at the hands of the Nigerian Army.

From its bases in the Borno region, in northeastern Nigeria, this terrorist sect carried out countless attacks, attacks, kidnappings and massacres that made it one of the most violent groups in Africa in the past decade.

The unstoppable advance of Boko Haram forced the Army to give ground and Shekau even proclaimed the creation of a caliphate in 2014.

More information

• Boko Haram: The Unseen Wounds

That same year, the kidnapping of 276 girls from a boarding school in Chibok was one of the moments of greatest media presence of the terrorist group as it generated an international campaign for their release. However, the creation of Iswap in 2016 from a split from Boko Haram was a severe blow to this terrorist organization and meant the emergence of a rival group with the backing of the Islamic State that had settled in the area until then the exclusive fiefdom of Shekau's men.

While Iswap was gaining ground and focused his attacks preferentially against the armies of Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon from their bases in Lake Chad, the bloody methods of the leader of Boko Haram and his offensives against Muslim civilians whom he accused of not follow the radical doctrine or complicity with the forces of order were increasingly questioned by their rivals. Meanwhile, the Nigerian army was withdrawing from rural areas and barricading itself in its military bases despite the fact that President Muhamadu Buhari had promised to end jihadism in the northeast of the country, which has caused some 40,000 deaths and two million displaced people.