A son of Boko Haram’s late founder has been arrested in Chad, where he was allegedly leading a jihadist cell, according to security sources and a former insurgent.
Muslim Mohammed Yusuf was detained alongside five other suspected members of the Islamist movement, which was created in Nigeria years before his birth by his father, radical preacher Mohammed Yusuf.
The jihadist group has terrorised the Lake Chad region for nearly 15 years, carrying out attacks on villages and military bases. Chadian police confirmed the arrest of six Boko Haram members but did not specify if one of them was the son of the group’s founder.
A Nigerian intelligence source in the Lake Chad region told AFP they had received reports of the arrest of a six-man jihadist cell in Chad. “The team was headed by Muslim, the youngest son of the late Boko Haram founder,” the source said.
The source added that the group belonged to the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), a Boko Haram splinter faction that emerged from ideological divisions. He further noted that Yusuf was an infant when his father was killed in 2009 during a Nigerian military crackdown on Boko Haram, putting his age at 18.
Photos seen by AFP after the arrests showed a young, short, slender man in a blue tracksuit, bearing a striking resemblance to Yusuf, standing next to far older suspects.
Yusuf, who reportedly uses the alias Abdrahman Mahamat Abdoulaye, is the younger brother of ISWAP leader Habib Yusuf, also known as Abu Mus’ab Al-Barnawi.
A former lieutenant of Mohammed Yusuf, who has since renounced Boko Haram but retains knowledge of the group’s operations, confirmed the arrest. “He and the team were arrested by Chadian security. They are six in number,” he told AFP.
Chadian police spokesperson Paul Manga described those arrested as “bandits who operate in the city… they are undocumented, they are members of Boko Haram.” He added that the arrests had taken place “a few months ago.”
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