The Chief of Defence Staff, General Lucky Irabor has said that the leader of the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) jihadist group, Abu Musab al-Barnawi, is dead.
“I can authoritatively confirm to you that al-Barnawi is dead. As simple as that. He is dead and remains dead,” CDS Irabor told reporters.
Though he did not give details on how or when al-Barnawi had died.
ISWAP has not given any confirmation of al-Barnawi’s death and the army has claimed before to have killed jihadist commanders only for them to reappear.
Al-Barnawi is the son of the founder of Nigeria’s Boko Haram militant group which has been fighting a grinding Islamist insurgency in the northeast since 2009.
The ISWAP commander rose to prominence after splitting with Boko Haram in 2016 over differences with its commander Abubakar Shekau, who died earlier this year during infighting between the two factions.
