Star Metro - Boko Haram denies Nigerien army claim to have killed leader

The militant group has been waging a bloody insurgency to establish an Islamic caliphate in northeast Nigeria since 2009, leaving around 40,000 people dead and forcing more than two million people to flee their homes.

Niger said late Thursday that Boko Haram leader Bakura, whose real name was given as Ibrahim Mahamadu, was killed during a "surgical operation" on an island in the Diffa region of southeast Niger last week.

But in an audio message sent to AFP by a security source in the Lake Chad area, one of Bakura's lieutenants called news of the leader's death "completely false".

"I am with him now, we are together," he said in the Hausa language spoken in the region, calling the Niger army announcement "propaganda".

Several experts contacted by AFP also cast doubt on the unverified claim.

Since 2023 Niger has been governed by a military junta that took power in a coup but has struggled to stem the jihadist violence shaking the country.

As well as in the east, where Boko Haram is at large, the Sahel nation also faces insurgencies by fighters linked to Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State group in the west, along the borders with Mali and Burkina Faso.

- No proof -

Bakura emerged as the leader of a splinter group loyal to former Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau that refused to join rival faction the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) over ideological differences.

He then moved to the islands on the Niger side of the lake with his fighters.

The Niger army said in its statement that Bakura was targeted by a fighter jet in an early morning strike on August 15, but provided no proof. AFP was unable to independently verify his death.

"I believe that we have to be very, very prudent," said Vincent Foucher, a researcher at France's CNRS institute specialising in studying Boko Haram.

"They've already announced the deaths of several jihadist leaders many times and very often those announcements have been contradicted.

"At the moment, we only have an announcement from the authorities."

Along with another expert in west African jihadist groups, who wished to remain anonymous, Foucher said his sources indicated that Bakura was still at large.

- Student kidnappings -

The Boko Haram conflict has spilled over Nigeria's porous northeastern border with Niger, Chad and Cameroon, with Niger suffering its first attacks by the group in Bosso, on the shores of Lake Chad in 2015.

At its height in the 2010s, Shekau was claimed dead several times only to reappear again in video footage, taunting the Nigerian authorities.

He finally died in 2021, with Bakura taking the reins afterwards.

Bakura, said to be aged around 40, originally came from Nigeria, the Niger army said.

It claimed he was involved in the kidnapping of more than 300 students in Kuriga, Nigeria in March 2024, and helped organise suicide bombings against mosques, markets and public gatherings as well as attacks on the Nigerien, Nigerian and Cameroonian armies.

He joined Boko Haram more than 13 years ago and took over leadership of the group after Shekau's death during jihadist infighting in May 2021.

O.Poirier--SMC