The Niger army has announced the killing of a senior Boko Haram commander during a targeted military operation in the Lake Chad basin, near the country’s southeastern border with Nigeria, Chad, and Cameroon.
According to a statement released on Thursday, the militant identified as Ibrahim Mahamadu, alias Bakura was eliminated on August 15 in a precision airstrike on Shilawa Island in the Diffa region.
Military officials described Bakura as a “feared leader” who commanded a breakaway faction loyal to the late Abubakar Shekau. Unlike rival fighters who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), Bakura maintained his own base of operations on islands along the Niger side of Lake Chad.
The army said a fighter jet carried out “three successive and targeted strikes” on his hideout early that morning, effectively neutralizing the threat.
Bakura, believed to be around 40 years old and originally from Nigeria, had long been linked to violent cross-border raids. His group continued to launch attacks despite growing military pressure in the region.
Since its emergence in 2009, Boko Haram’s insurgency has killed an estimated 40,000 people and displaced more than two million, with its violence spilling beyond Nigeria into Niger, Chad, and Cameroon. Niger itself first experienced Boko Haram attacks in 2015 in the town of Bosso, on the shores of Lake Chad.
