A clash between fighters from the Jamā’at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da’wah wa’l-Jihād, Boko Haram and the Islamic State of West African Province (ISWAP) has led to the death of 41 terrorists and commanders. 

The fight broke out Wednesday, August 23, in the North East of Borno State. Sources told Vanguard that the ISWAP terrorists, who came on several canoes, attacked the Bakoura Buduma-led faction of Boko Haram in the axis of Duguri in Kukawa Local Government Area. The “bloody encounter left 41 fighters dead on both sides including commanders of the group”.

Zagazola Makama, a counter-insurgency expert and security analyst in the Lake Chad region confirmed the clash and listed some of the dead commanders as Modu Kayi, Abbah Musa, Isa Muhammed, Ibrahim Ali, Kanai Zakariya and Bula Salam, Isuhu Alhaji Umaru, Dogo Salman and Abdulrahman Malam Musa among others.

The publication reported that ISWAP are having an upper hand in the area following the defection of one Abou Idris, a former chief of operation of Boko Haram, who joined ISWAP to fight his former group.