Abu Musab al-Barnawi (1991- August 2021) was the leader of Boko Haram (ISIL's West Africa Wilayah) from 8 August 2016, succeeding Abubakar Shekau, who formed Jama'atu Ahlus-Sunnah Lidda'Awati wal Jihad.
Biography[]
Abu Musab al-Barnawi was born in 1991 in Maiduguri, Borno State, northern Nigeria to a Sunni Muslim family. He was the first surviving son of Boko Haram leader Mohammed Yusuf, and he lost his brother and mother in a shootout in Kano in 2011. He took on the nom de guerre of "Abu Musab al-Barnawi", meaning "the father of Musab from Borno State", and al-Barnawi joined his father's militant group during its insurgency against the Nigerian government. al-Barnawi was a spokesman for the group until 2012-2013, when he formed the Ansaru splintergroup in opposition to attacks on Muslim civilians by the mainstream Boko Haram group. By 2015, Ansaru appeared to be breaking away from al-Qaeda and siding with the Islamic State, but the infighting of 2016 led to Barnawi becoming the new leader of Boko Haram, while the even more extreme leader Abubakar Shekau formed Jama'atu Ahlus-Sunnah Lidda'Awati wal Jihad on 8 August 2016. In May 2021, al-Barnawi's ISWAP captured the Sambisa Forest from Shekau's faction, and Shekau committed suicide in a suicide bombing rather than surrender. He was killed in August 2021.