THE National Security Adviser, Maj. Gen. Babagana Mongonu (retd), says the country’s troops fighting insurgency in the North-East killed the leader of the Islamic State of West African Province (ISWAP), Abu Musab Al-Barnawi and his successor, one Malam Bako.
Mongonu disclosed this to State House correspondents yesterday at the end of a Security Council meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
The Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Lucky Irabor, had on October 14 confirmed the death of al-Barnawi.
The CDS was however silent on how the ISWAP leader was killed.
But Mongonu told journalists Bako was killed by troops along with a prominent member of the ISWAP on Tuesday.
He said: “The fact again is that the armed forces, the land forces have done an excellent job because in the span of one month we have been able to take out the leadership of the Islamic State of West African Province (ISWAP) – that is Abu Musab Al-Barnawi.
“Two days ago, the man who succeeded him, one Malam Bako, one of the prominent leaders of the Shura Council of the Islamic State of West African Province, was also taken out.
“They are also contending with a leadership crisis. You know these things are also accompanied by inherent issues of trust, conflicts, mutual suspicion, and other things.
“So, the operations being conducted by the armed forces in the Northern parts of the country put a lot of pressure on the Islamic State of West African Province, Boko Haram, and also the tangential group known as Islamic State in the Greatest Sahara.’’
