Muslim Mohammed Yusuf, the son of Boko Haram’s founder, has been arrested in Chad while allegedly leading a jihadist cell in the country, according to intelligence sources.
Yusuf was arrested along with five other suspected members of the movement, which was founded in neighbouring Nigeria several years before his birth by radical preacher Mohammed Yusuf.
The Islamist group has terrorized the Lake Chad region for roughly 15 years, carrying out audacious attacks on villages and military installations in recent months.
Chadian police confirmed the arrest of six Boko Haram members but did not specify whether one of them was the son of the group’s late founder.
A Nigerian intelligence source in the Lake Chad region told AFP at the weekend that they received a report of the arrest of a six-man jihadist cell in Chad.
“The team was headed by Muslim, the youngest son of the late Boko Haram founder,” said the source.
The source, however, said that the cell belonged to the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), a rival faction that broke away from Boko Haram due to ideological differences.
The source added that Yusuf was an infant when his father was killed in 2009 during a military crackdown that left some 800 people dead, placing his age at 18.
Photos obtained by AFP after the arrests show a young, slender man in a blue tracksuit, bearing a striking resemblance to Yusuf, standing alongside older men.
Yusuf, who also goes by the alias, Abdrahman Mahamat Abdoulaye, is the younger brother of ISWAP leader Habib Yusuf, known as Abu Mus’ab Al-Barnawi.
A former lieutenant of Yusuf’s father, who has since denounced Boko Haram but is familiar with the group’s inner workings, also confirmed the arrest.
“He and the team were arrested by Chadian security. They are six in number,” he told AFP.
Chadian police spokesman, Paul Manga, said the suspects were “bandits who operate in the city… they are undocumented, they are members of Boko Haram,” adding that the arrests took place “a few months ago.”
Nigeria’s counter-terrorism centre and the national intelligence service have yet to comment on the arrests.