A son of Boko Haram founder, Mohammed Yusuf, has reportedly been arrested in Chad, where he was said to be leading a jihadist cell, intelligence sources and a former insurgent have confirmed.

 

The suspect, identified as Muslim Yusuf, was captured alongside five others believed to be members of the Islamist movement. Chadian police confirmed the arrest of six Boko Haram members but could not verify if one of them was indeed the late Yusuf’s son.

 

A Nigerian intelligence source in the Lake Chad region told AFP over the weekend that the arrested group was affiliated with the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), a splinter faction that broke away from Boko Haram due to ideological rifts.

 

“The team was headed by Muslim, the youngest son of the late Boko Haram founder,” the source said, adding that Yusuf was just an infant when his father was killed in 2009 during a Nigerian military crackdown that left about 800 people dead. He is now believed to be 18.

 

Photographs seen by AFP after the arrests showed a young, slender man in a blue tracksuit—bearing a striking resemblance to Mohammed Yusuf—standing next to older detainees.

 

Yusuf, who reportedly goes by the alias Abdrahman Mahamat Abdoulaye, is also the younger brother of ISWAP leader Habib Yusuf, better known as Abu Mus’ab Al-Barnawi.

 

A former Boko Haram lieutenant, who has since renounced the group but retains knowledge of its internal structure, confirmed Yusuf’s arrest. “He and the team were arrested by Chadian security. They are six in number,” he said.

 

Chadian police spokesperson Paul Manga, speaking from N’djamena, said the six were arrested months ago. “They are undocumented. They are members of Boko Haram,” he added.

 

Meanwhile, Nigeria’s counter-terrorism center and national intelligence agency have yet to comment on the reported arrest.