‘Son’ of Boko Haram’s founder named jihadi head

At the point when the Islamic State bunch named Abu Musab al-Barnawi as the head of Boko Haram ahead of schedule in August, few individuals even perceived his name.

However, to close onlookers of Nigerian jihadi issues, Barnawi's advancement from moderately obscure representative to pioneer shocked no one.

All things considered, numerous specialists say that Barnawi, conceived Habib Yusuf, is the 22-year-old child of Boko Haram's author Mohammed Yusuf.

Barnawi's arrangement by IS has extended a fracture with long-term boss Abubakar Shekau, who later discharged a video demanding he was in control and vowing to battle on.

Nigeria's military asserted on Tuesday that Shekau had been injured in an air strike on Boko Haram's backwoods fortress however this has yet to be affirmed.

Yusuf senior passed on in police guardianship taking after a 2009 military crackdown on the order in the northeastern city of Maiduguri that prodded the gathering to wage war against the Nigerian government.

"Abu Musab al-Barnawi is the child generally Mohammed Yusuf," tweeted Ahmad Salkida, a Nigerian writer who represents considerable authority in covering the insurrection.

"He is the main surviving child," affirmed Fulan Nasrullah, a contention scientist situated in Nigeria, likewise in a Twitter post.

Shekau himself had encouraged Barnawi when he was still a youngster, and gave him another Arabic name signifying "the man from Borno".

Barnawi was "like a more youthful sibling or child to Shekau", Nasrullah said, portraying him as one of the central's two trusted right hand men.

The adolescent couldn't have had a more fearsome guide.

Shekau taught him in the craft of war as he changed Boko Haram from a strict Islamic group into a jihadist development that destroyed to swathes of region in the upper east.

Since 2009, the gathering has slaughtered an expected 20,000 individuals, incited 2.6 million to escape their homes, and hijacked a huge number of individuals, including many schoolgirls from Chibok in the northern condition of Borno.

Mystery killings

Barnawi showed up in a January 2015 video asserting obligation regarding a Boko Haram assault in the northeastern town of Baga, where numerous regular folks were slaughtered.

The primary indications of a break showed up after Shekau promised dependability to IS in March that year and changed Boko Haram's name to Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP).

As indicated by sources near the jihadist gathering and acquainted with its operations, Barnawi broke with Shekau and swung to Mamman Nur, a strategist who had served as Shekau's appointee and was a nearby partner and comrade of Barnawi's dad.

Nur and Barnawi removed warriors from Sambisa timberland to ranges along Lake Chad, where the savannah fields meet the Sahara desert.

They transparently censured Shekau's severe administration style, claiming he covertly murdered top activist leaders who couldn't help contradicting him.

They likewise pointed the finger at him for the mishaps the gathering had endured since Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari came into office in 2015.

The sources near Boko Haram say Nur turned down the official authority of ISWAP, recommending it go rather to his protege while he coordinates from in the background.