Coup within Boko Haram’s ranks “plausible”

 Claims that Nigeria’s Boko Haram has been
“decapitated” have been spectacularly rebuffed by
the jihadists’ leader, yet his first broadcast in months
may not see off an impending mutiny, say analysts.
Abubakar Shekau released an eight-minute audio
recording on Sunday — his first since March —
denying claims by Chadian leader Idriss Deby that he
had been replaced, and dismissing the president as a
“hypocrite” and a “tyrant”.
The tirade was a reaction to Deby telling reporters in
N’Djamena last week that Boko Haram was no longer
led by the fearsome Shekau and that his successor,
whom he named as “Mahamat Daoud”, was open to
talks with the government.
Security analysts accept the Shekau recording as
genuine and many experienced observers are taking
Deby’s claims with scepticism, pointing out that
similar reports have proven untrue in the past.
But Ryan Cummings, chief security analyst at South
African consultancy Red 24 and an expert on the
Nigerian insurgency, described the Chadian head-of-
state’s claims as “not without merit”.
Cummings believes Boko Haram may be an umbrella
movement comprising many disparate factions
rather than a monolithic organisation and says
internal rivalries “would be no means be a new
development for the sect”.
He points to the formation of Ansaru, a splinter
group formed in 2012 on the back of ideological
differences and a leadership struggle between
Shekau and a high-ranking Boko Haram commander
known as Khalid al-Barnawi.
“So this does highlight that a precedent for
leadership squabbles and factionalism does exist
within the Boko Haram entity,” Cummings told AFP.
– ‘Top dog’ –
Boko Haram has been waging a six-year uprising
against the Nigerian state, claiming more than 15,000
lives, but the jihadists’ recent extension of their
northeastern insurgency across borders has brought
Chad and its neighbours into the fray.
In March, Shekau pledged allegiance to the Islamic
State group and its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,
renaming his organisation “Islamic State West Africa
Province”, or “ISWAP”.
Deby’s speech on the group’s decapitation made
headlines around the world, but shed little light on
Shekau’s putative replacement, an apparently new
player in global jihad who was virtually unknown
before last week.
Nigerian security analyst Fulan Nasrullah, one of the
country’s most respected Boko Haram watchers,
argues in a blog post for the London-based Royal
African Society that the “Mahamat Daoud” to whom
Deby referred is actually Muhammad Daud, a Shuwa
Arab from Borno State, the cradle of the insurgency.
Daud, aged around 38, is an ex-serviceman and
protege of slain Boko Haram founder Muhammad
Yusuf, who disagrees with the 2009 uprising and is
“one of the few top dogs against the pledge of
allegiance made to Islamic State”, Nasrullah says.
The militant, who has a Chadian mother, is a
powerful commander in charge of counter-
intelligence and internal security who oversaw the
training of suicide bombers and the planning of
attacks in major cities, according to the analyst.
Nasrullah says Daud has broken away from ISWAP
with hundreds of fighters, including commanders
who are against the IS pledge and disagree with
Shekau’s “extreme brutalit