Niger Republic’s army has announced the killing of Boko Haram commander Ibrahim Mahamadu, popularly known as Bakura, during a targeted military operation in the Lake Chad basin.
Bakura was eliminated in what the army described as a “surgical operation” on August 15 on Shilawa Island in the Diffa region of southeast Niger. “Very early in the morning of August 15 an air force fighter aircraft launched three targeted and successive strikes on the positions Bakura used to occupy in Shilawa,” the statement read.
The Niger military described him as a “feared leader” of the jihadist group. He was said to be around 40 years old, originally from Nigeria, and had been a member of Boko Haram for more than 13 years.
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Bakura rose to prominence after the death of Boko Haram’s former leader Abubakar Shekau in May 2021, leading a splinter group loyal to Shekau and refusing to pledge allegiance to the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP). He later moved with his fighters to the islands on the Niger side of Lake Chad.
Boko Haram’s insurgency began in northeast Nigeria in 2009 and has since killed more than 40,000 people and displaced over two million. The violence has spilled into neighboring countries, with Niger first experiencing Boko Haram attacks in Bosso, near Lake Chad, in 2015.
