(Xinhua/Wale Salau)A top commander of the Boko Haram terror group and 10 other terrorists were killed during a night raid in Nigeria's northeastern state of Borno, which has long been plagued by insurgency, the military said in a statement on Sunday. The Boko Haram commander, identified as Abu Khalid, was the second-in-command of the terror group at the Sambisa Forest and "a key figure within the terrorist hierarchy, coordinating operations and logistics in the Sambisa axis," according to the statement. Boko Haram and ISWAP have been collaborating in an attempt to establish an Islamist state in northeast Nigeria. The conflict has since expanded to include a faction aligned with the Islamic State group, known as the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP). Taiwo Adebayo, a Boko Haram researcher at the Institute for Security Studies, said the military initiated a new offensive last month, taking the fight directly to militant hideouts.

Source: The Star February 01, 2026 22:06 UTC