Moroccan intelligence services collaborated with Niger’s army in the operation that killed Boko Haram leader Ibrahim Mahamadu, known as “Bakura,” according to Spanish daily La Razón, which cited security forces in Rabat.
The paper reported that Morocco’s contribution formed part of wider intelligence-sharing with Sahel and Sahara countries, where Rabat has positioned itself as a key partner in counterterrorism, the fight against violent extremism and organized crime.
The Nigerien armed forces announced that on August 15, 2025, they “neutralized” Bakura in a precision raid on Shilawa Island in the Diffa region, long a Boko Haram stronghold in the Lake Chad Basin.
Military statements hailed the strike as a “surgical operation.” Intelligence provided by Moroccan services reportedly guided Nigerien troops to the target.
Bakura, a Nigerian national, assumed leadership of Boko Haram in 2021 after the confirmed death of Abubakar Shekau. Rejecting allegiance to the rival Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), he consolidated fighters on Lake Chad’s islands, where his faction became notorious for looting raids and assaults on civilian populations.
Under his leadership, Boko Haram reasserted itself as a central actor in the insurgency across northeast Nigeria and Niger’s borderlands.
Founded in Nigeria in the early 2000s, Boko Haram first gained international notoriety with the 2014 kidnapping of more than 300 schoolgirls from Chibok.
Since 2009, the insurgency has killed more than 40,000 people and displaced over two million, according to United Nations figures.
The violence has spilled into Cameroon, Chad and Niger, destabilizing the entire Lake Chad Basin.
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