The Nigerian military has neutralised the leader of the Islamic State of West Africa Province (ISWAP) in Nigeria, Ba’a Shuwa, and scores of his fighters in the northeastern state of Brono during a major air offensive by the Nigerian Air Force.
Intelligence sources saying that the damaging airstrikes carried out on January 2, 2023 at Kwatan Dilla, in Abadam LGA of Borno State had led to killing of Ba’a Shuwa and a number of his fighters.
Zagazola Makama, a counter-insurgency expert and security analyst on the Lake Chad region, also confirmed the strike.
Reports say Shuwa was appointed in 2021 after Abubakar Shekau killed himself. He was Commanding Islamists in Chiralia, Markas Kauwa, Abirma, Buk, Abulam, Dusula, Abbagajiri, Gorgore and many other camps within the Timbuktu and Alagarno axis in the South of Borno. He had accommodated the late ISWAP Leader, Abu Musab al-Barnawi, when he was forced to flee his base after attacks by Boko Haram elements.
He was chosen to serve as ISWAP’s Wali in November 2022.
Shuwa was forced to Operate from Gol and Chillaria due to the perennial flooding that submerged most of the camps in the Lake Chad area, which forced active fighters and their families to relocate to other areas.
Some of his top Commanding Officers included; Khaid Hanzala, Ba’a Idirisa, Rawana, Abou Ibrahim, Mallam Abubakar, Abou Aisha and Abou Khalid who is said to have been responsible for the recent attack on the electricity towers along Maiduguri-Damaturu highway in Borno state.
Ba’a Shuwa and his groups, Zagazola reports, are mostly responsible for attacks, ambushes and IED/mine towards Damboa roads, Damaturu-Maiduguri, Askira, Buratai, Buni Yadi, Buni Gari, Gaidam and other part of Borno and Yobe States, major theatres of insurgency in Nigeria’s northeast.
Shuwa and his groups usually hibernated in highly fortified hideouts under thick foliage and rocks properly concealed and camouflaged in order to evade air strikes within the Timbuktu Triangle.
