The Nigerien Armed Forces (FAN) has announced that it killed Ibrahim Mahamadu, a prominent Boko Haram leader known as Bakura, in a targeted air strike in the Lake Chad basin near Nigeria, Chad, and Cameroon. The operation marks a significant blow to the jihadist group’s splinter faction in the region.

The strike occurred early on August 15 in Shilawa, a village in Niger’s southeastern Diffa region, where Bakura and his fighters were based on islands in Lake Chad.

“Very early in the morning of August 15, an air force fighter aircraft launched three targeted and successive strikes on the positions Bakura used to occupy,” the Niger army stated.

The military described Bakura, a 40-year-old Nigerian, as a “feared leader” who joined Boko Haram over 13 years ago and assumed leadership of a faction loyal to the late Abubakar Shekau after his death in May 2021.

Bakura’s group, which rejected alignment with the rival Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), operated from Niger’s side of Lake Chad, contributing to the region’s instability. Boko Haram’s insurgency, which began in 2009 to establish an Islamic caliphate in northeast Nigeria, has killed approximately 40,000 people and displaced over two million, with violence spilling into Niger since 2015, notably in Bosso.

Supporters of the operation view it as a critical step in curbing jihadist activity, while regional security analysts note that Bakura’s death may disrupt his faction’s operations but not the broader insurgency, given ISWAP’s dominance. The Niger army provided no further details on the operation’s impact or follow-up actions.