The chief of defence staff, Lucky Irabor, Thursday confirmed the death of the leader of the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP, Abu Musad Al-Barnawi.
Irabor disclosed this while fielding questions from state house correspondent at the weekly briefing organised by the Presidential Communications Team at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
Mr Irabor, who did not disclose details of the death, said the terrorist leader remains dead.
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“I can authoritatively confirm to you that Abu Musab is dead. As simple as that. He is dead and remains dead,” he said.
The leadership of the late jihadist leader, al-Barnawi, made ISWAP a dominant terrorist group after it seized power from the late Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau.
The group has been striking frequently at troops resulting in the death of more than 40,000 since it began in 2009.
Since splitting with Boko Haram in 2016, the group has shown its resilience and carried out large-scale ambushes on the military in the past weeks.
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