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As many as 200 terrorists were killed in a turf war on Sunday between rival jihadists in north-east Nigeria.
The fighting between Boko Haram and rival militants from Islamic State West Africa Province (Iswap) broke out over the weekend in the village of Dogon Chiku, which lies on the shores of Lake Chad, a restive area located at the junction of Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon.
The lake’s riverine corridors serve as operational zones for jihadists who also bank on revenues from taxing fishers, loggers and herders.
The violent episode was the latest in a fight between the groups for territory and influence as more non-state actors stake a claim for dominance in the wider Sahel region. According to reports, Iswap reportedly incurred more personnel losses and several boats used in the assault were seized by Boko Haram forces.
“From the toll we got, around 200 Iswap terrorists were killed in the fight,” Babakura Kolo, a member of a vigilante group that works with the Nigerian military, told Agence France-Presse.
“We are aware of the fighting which is good news to us,” AFP also quoted a Nigerian intelligence source as saying. The source added that the casualty total was “more than 150”.
Iswap began as a splinter group from Boko Haram that allied with IS. Since the split in 2016, both factions have fought repeatedly, primarily in the Lake Chad basin area. Other groups have since split from Boko Haram, drifting to other parts of northern Nigeria.
The lake has lost more than 90% of its surface area since the 1960s, according to the UN Environment Programme. As the water recedes, new land routes across the territory open up.
By many analyst accounts, Iswap was long considered the stronger and more resourceful of the two factions, but Boko Haram was seen as successful in the fight to occupy the Lake Chad area. Sunday’s clash was potentially the deadliest between them yet.
In May 2021, Iswap launched an offensive on Sambisa, the forest enclave that was Boko Haram’s longtime base, and where it kept abducted schoolgirls. It is believed that Abubakar Shekau, the infamous leader of Boko Haram, killed himself during a clash with Iswap in Sambisa.
Between December 2022 and January 2023, Boko Haram also launched big raids on two Iswap bases in Borno state, the birthplace of the group’s radical ideology. Caches of weapons were seized as more than 100 Iswap fighters were killed and 35 others injured, according to reports by local newspapers the Guardian Nigeria and Punch.
After the extrajudicial killing of Shekau’s predecessor, Mohammed Yusuf, in 2009, a jihadist conflict has killed more than 40,000 people and displaced around 2 million in Nigeria’s predominantly Muslim north-east.
