A close aide to the head of jihadist group Boko Haram on Friday denied Nigerien army claims that he had been killed in a targeted airstrike in the Lake Chad basin.
Boko Haram leader killed in Niger
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 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.
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