Lawan Abubakar, Leader Of ISWAP Executes 5 Leaders Of Group

The new leader of Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) Lawan Abubakar, also called Ba Lawan, has executed five Shura council members (the supreme leadership council of the terrorist group).

The executed leaders included the erstwhile leader of the group Abu Abdullahi Umar Al Barnawi aka Ba Idrisa, according to authoritative sources familiar with developments around the group said in Diffa and Maiduguri.

The execution is seen as the new leader’s way of consolidating his power and authority over the terrorist organisation.

After an early February coup that led to the overthrow of Al-Barnawi, the new leadership detained him together with four members of the Shura who constituted his kitchen cabinet, sources said.

The precise date of the execution is still in contention, but there are indications that the killing of Ba Idrisa, along with Mohammad Bashir, Mustapha Jere, Ali Abdullahi, and the notorious Baba Mayinta, believed to be the power behind the throne under the Idrisa dispensation, “definitely triggered the mutiny of Wednesday 26th February into Thursday, 27th February by Ba Idrisa loyalists.