At least two Commanding Militants Officers (Khayds) of the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), Abu-Ikilima and Habu West, were killed in the wake of renewed deadly attacks coordinated against the group by the Abubakar Shekau-led faction of the Jama’at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da’wah wa’l-Jihad in the axis of Sambisa Forest.
An impeccable source told Zagazola Makama, a Counter Insurgency Expert in the Lake Chad, that the separate fierce encounter which took place at Yale in Damboa and Gargash village few kilometers ahead of Nguro Soye in Bama local Government Areas, also left at least 32 terrorists dead from both sides.
Zagazola learnt that the two ISWAP Khaids were killed along with four other fighters in an ambush by the rival Boko Haram faction in the village of Yale while moving at night on their way to a newly established ISWAP camp around the axis of Alafa on April 19.
The sources said that four other ISWAP fighters caught alive were disarmed and slaughtered by the rival group while three truck vehicles belonging to them were seized.
Similarly, On April 20, 2022, a top Leader of the Boko Haram, Ambu Mairamiri, also known as Amir Fiyer or Abou Ali, led large numbers of heavily armed Boko Haram insurgents to invade an ISWAP settlement around Nguro Soye, leading to a heavy gunbattle which lasted for more than two hours.
The sources said that the mutually destructive fight led to the death of about 18 ISWAP fighters while 6 Boko Haram fighters were killed on the other side.
Mairamiri who vowed to eliminate all ISWAP terrorists from the surface of the earth, ordered his men to burn down four guntrucks belonging to ISWAP as well as their newly erected mikeshift tents.
The infighting between the two terrorists had taken a new dimension in Sambisa forest with the Boko Haram hunting for the ISWAP terrorists during the night because of their knowledge of the terrain while the ISWAP are coordinating reprisal attacks during the day.
Sources familiar with the development also said that the intensified military operations under the auspicies of Operation Desert and Lake Sanity had forced many ISWAP terrorists and their families to relocate to safer locations around the axis of Mandara Mountain, Gargash, Izza, Bula Bakakai, Gobara as well as Ngulde rock in the axis of Chibok.
The current sustained battlefield impact is pushing a self-destruct inclination amongst the Jihadists, just as they continue to relocate from one hideout to another, while the risk of exposure and battlefield elimination increases.
