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Top Ansaru jihadist captured in central Nigeria

Defense Ministry spokesman Brig. Gen. Rabe Abubakar says a $5 million reward had been offered for information leading to the arrest of Barnawi, reportedly the highest-ranking Islamic extremist to be captured in Nigeria.
The country has been entangled in a six-year war with Islamic jihadists of Boko Haram who have killed, maimed and raped Nigerians, including female schoolchildren, to entertain their fighters while intimidating officials and residents of local villages and towns mostly in the north-eastern sector. Abubakar called the arrest “a breakthrough in the fight against terrorism” on Sunday. The Nigerian general said law enforcement arrested al-Barnawi, whose last name was also Abubakar before he changed it in Lokoja, a city in the central region.
The leading jihadist’s arrest in a city around 600 miles south of the northeastern warfront suggests Islamic jihadists have infiltrated the ranks of Fulani Muslim herders. The herders have attacked Christian farmers over land and water in the central region where scores of people have died in fighting.
For its part, Ansaru is closely allied with Al Qaeda based in Islamic Maghred. The Maghred faction has become infamous for the kidnapping of foreigners who they then hold for ransom or kill.
Al-Barnawi is thought to have been the mastermind behind a 2011 kidnapping of two engineers, one British and one Italian, who the group murdered during a rescue gone awry attempted by British and Nigerian special forces in Sokoto city about one year later. Authorities say the Muslim jihadist was also involved in the 2012 kidnapping of a German construction engineer murdered in Kano that year.
Analysts say the Ansaru group broke away from Boko Haram over disputes of that group’s slaughter of fellow Muslims. Jihadists are attempting to create an Islamic caliphate in Nigeria, a country of 170 million people where Muslims slightly outnumber Christians, similar to ISIS. Many say Nigeria is on the verge of civil war as extremists emboldened by paid ransoms and the ransacking and pillaging of villages that often goes unpunished.

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