Isis tries to impose new leader on Boko Haram in Nigeria

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian and agencies

Isis tries to impose new leader on Boko Haram in Nigeria

Leadership of terrorist group that kidnapped 300 schoolgirls
in 2014 is in doubt, with long-term leader believed to be out
of favour after killing moderate Muslims

Ruth Maclean in Conakry, Isaac Abrak in Abuja and agencies
Friday 5 August 2016 00.55 BST

Two of the purported leaders of Boko Haram are apparently pitted against each other in a power struggle within Islamic State’s west African affiliate.

Isis announced on Tuesday that the group that has ravaged northern Nigeria for the past seven years had a new leader – Abu Musab al-Barnawi. An Isis magazine carried an interview with him and said he was previously a Boko Haram spokesman.

However an audio message apparently recorded by Abubakar Shekau, the long-time leader of Boko Haram, who has appeared in many of its videos, was released on Thursday denying al-Barnawi’s claim. In the recording, a man who said he was Shekau said that he was still in control of the armed terrorists whose most notorious crime was the abduction of around 300 schoolgirls from their dormitory two years ago, leading to the Bring Back Our Girls campaign led by Michelle Obama.

Shekau has overseen the brutal and bloody growth of the group: since he became Boko Haram’s leader in 2009 more than 20,000 people have been killed and 2.2 million driven from their homes. Thousands have been raped, abducted and enslaved.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/05/isis-tries-to-impose-new-leader-on-boko-haram-in-nigeria

[Squinch]

1. This is a big deal. Any cooperation or relationship between these two groups would be a disaster.

[LisaM]

2. Having those two groups turn on each other would be a great thing.

It's kind of like when the Orcs from Mordor and the Orcs from Isengard kept doing each other in.