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Nigeria arrests leaders of terror group
Cape Times
|August 18, 2025
NIGERIAN officials said at the weekend they had arrested the alleged leaders of a jihadist group accused of several high-profile attacks including a 2022 brazen jailbreak in the capital Abuja that temporarily freed hundreds of inmates.
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Nigeria’s National Security Advisor, Nuhu Ribadu, told journalists that Mahmud Muhammad Usman and Mahmud al-Nigeri had been captured during a “targeted operation” between May and July.
He said they were the leaders of Jama’atu Ansarul Muslimina fi-Biladis Sudan commonly known as Ansaru.
President Bola Tinubu’s spokesperson Bayo Onanuga described the capture in a social media post as a “significant breakthrough in the war against terrorism”.
The group was also accused of blowing up rail tracks and raiding a train travelling from the capital Abuja to the northwestern city of Kaduna also in 2022. Eight people were killed and dozens more kidnapped and held for months.
This story is from the August 18, 2025 edition of Cape Times.
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