In-fighting has broken out in Boko Haram
after the Islamic State group announced a new leader of its Nigerian
affiliate, according to reports in the country’s remote northeast.
IS said last month that Abu Musab
al-Barnawi, the son of Boko Haram’s founder Mohammed Yusuf, had replaced
Abubakar Shekau at the head of the designated terrorist organization.
But Shekau then insisted he was still in
charge of the Islamist group, whose insurgency has killed at least
20,000 people since 2009 and forced more than 2.6 million from their
homes.
Sources in northeast Nigeria now say
there have been deadly skirmishes between the two factions, even as
Nigeria’s military seeks to finally rout the rebels in a sustained
counter-offensive.
Last Thursday, several fighters from
Shekau’s camp were said to have been killed in two separate gun battles
with IS-backed Barnawi gunmen in the Monguno area of Borno state near
Lake Chad.
Nigeria’s military declined to comment on the reported in-fighting when contacted by AFP.
– ‘True jihad’ –
Mele Kaka, who lives in the area, told
AFP: “The Barnawi faction launched an offensive against the Shekau
faction who were camped in the villages of Yele and Arafa.
“In Yele, the assailants killed three
people from the Shekau camp, injured one and took one with them, while
several were killed in Arafa,” he said by telephone from the state
capital, Maiduguri.
The attack prompted residents of Arafa to flee, he added.
Fighters from Barnawi camp had the
previous day attacked gunmen loyal to Shekau in Zuwa village in nearby
Marte district, killing an unspecified number, Kaka said.
“The Barnawi fighters told villagers
after each attack that they were fighting the other camp because they
had derailed from the true jihad and were killing innocent people,
looting their property and burning their homes,” he went on.
“They said such acts contravene the teachings of Islam and true jihad.”
– Ideological split –
Shekau has led Boko Haram since the
death of Mohammed Yusuf in police custody in 2009, waging a deadly,
indiscriminate guerilla war that has overwhelmingly targeted civilians.
Suicide bombers have repeatedly hit busy
mosques, churches, markets and bus stations while hit-and-run raids
have destroyed remote villages, killing and maiming residents.
Thousands of people, many of them women
and young girls, have been kidnapped, including more than 200
schoolgirls, who were seized from the Borno town of Chibok more than two
years ago.
Shekau has justified the attacks in
ranting video and audio monologues against the secular state, those who
support it and anyone who does not share his radical interpretation of
Islam.
He pledged allegiance to IS leader Abu
Bakr al-Baghdadi in March last year, changing the group’s name to
Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP).
Experts, however, suggest the
indiscriminate slaughter of civilians as well as Shekau’s “dictatorial”
style, including secret killings of dissenting commanders, have caused a
rift.
Shortly after his nomination, Barnawi
made a pointed critique of Shekau’s leadership, lambasting him for
targeting ordinary Muslims.
– Gun battle –
News of the factional clashes have been
slow to emerge because of the destroyed telecommunications
infrastructure in northeast Nigeria, and restricted access.
A civilian vigilante assisting the military against Boko Haram said there were sporadic clashes between the opposing fighters.
The three incidents described by Kaka were “very possible”, said Babakura Kolo.
“I don’t have news of the clashes but it
is not surprising if they did occur because there has been similar
in-fighting among the two Boko Haram camps,” he added.
Two weeks ago, there was a fierce gun
battle in the Abadam area of Borno state, near the border with Niger,
where Shekau’s fighters were routed, he said.
“It was a deadly fight and Shekau’s fighters were forced to flee,” he said.
Hundreds of residents of the villages
and their herds taken hostage by the fleeing fighters were allowed to go
about their normal lives by the Barnawi faction, Kolo added.
No comments:
Post a Comment