Armed with bombs, Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) and General Purpose Machine Guns (GPMG), the attackers, who arrived at about 10:05 p.m. local time, gained access from the back of the prison, using dynamite to destroy the heavily fortified facility, freeing 600 of the prison’s 994 inmates, according to the country’s defense minister, Bashir Magassi, who said 64 of those were released were jihadists. “Most likely, they [the attackers] they are members of Boko Haram because we have [a] Quite a number of Boko Haram suspects in custody and at present we cannot trace any of them,” Magasi told reporters on Wednesday morning. “They have all escaped.” The Islamic State West African Province (ISWAP), which has recently been working closely with Ansaru, later claimed responsibility for the attack and even released a video showing a part of the prison on fire and many of the inmates fleeing the prison. Fighters from both groups collaborated to carry out the March attack on the Abuja to Kaduna train in northern Nigeria, which killed nine people and kidnapped more than 65. The government did not officially name the jihadists freed by the attackers, but three security officials told The Daily Beast that Ansaru leader Khalid al Barnawi and six of his close lieutenants were among those who escaped. “He [al Barnawi] he’s been here for a few years,” a Kuje prison official who was on duty at the facility when the jihadists invaded told The Daily Beast. “They [the attackers] he came especially to free him and his colleagues.’ A combined team of Nigerian security services had arrested al-Barnawi, whose real name is Mohammed Usman, in 2016 and charged him in connection with the deaths of Italian engineer Franco Lamolinara and his British colleague Chris McManus. The two men were killed by Ansaru kidnappers in the northwestern city of Sokoto in March 2012 after a British-Nigerian rescue operation was launched. The Ansaru leader is also alleged to be behind the kidnapping of Francis Collomp, a Frenchman who escaped from his captors in November 2013, and Edgar Raupach, a German who was killed during a military raid in the northwestern state of Kano in May 2012. In 2013, al Barnawi and his Ansaru colleagues captured two Lebanese, two Syrians, an Italian, a Greek and a Briton from a construction site in the northeastern city of Bauchi. The victims were taken to the vast Sambisa forest that covers much of the northeast, killed and buried in a shallow grave. Ansaru’s full Arabic name, Jama’atu Ansarul Muslimina Fi Biladis Sudan, translates to: “Initiatives for the Protection of Muslims in Black Africa.” The group announced it had split from Boko Haram in January 2012, claiming Boko Haram was “inhumane” for killing innocent Muslims as well as targeting defectors. Unlike Boko Haram, which is notorious for its indiscriminate shootings and bombings, Ansaru, which says it avoids killing fellow Nigerians, appears to prefer a more calculated approach: kidnapping and killing foreigners. The group was founded by Abu Usmatul al Ansari, a little-known fighter believed to have been trained by al-Qaeda in Algeria. But his name is rarely mentioned in connection with Ansaru attacks. Instead, most of the credit goes to 51-year-old al-Barnawi, another al-Qaeda-trained jihadist who is seen by many of Ansar’s fighters as the group’s “active” leader. The jihadist was designated a “global terrorist” in 2012 by the US government, which also offered a $5 million reward for “information leading to the justice” of al-Barnawi. “How can terrorists organize, have weapons, attack a security facility and get away with it?” The remand order for the terror leader in Kuje Prison was issued on March 14, 2017 by Justice John Tshoho of the Federal High Court in Abuja after he was charged with conspiracy, hostage-taking, support of a terrorist group, membership of a terrorist group, illegal possession of firearms and concealment of information about terrorism. Al Barnawi was indicted along with his second wife Halima Aliya, who was accused of withholding information about the Ansaru organization, and five of his lieutenants—Mohammed Bashir Saleh, Umar Bello (aka Abu Azhan). Mohammed Salisu (aka Datti); Yakubu Nuhu (aka Bello Maishayi) and Usman Abubakar (aka Mugiratu)—who were charged with the same offense as him and also ordered to be detained in Kuje. The Nigerian authorities did not immediately obey the order. Instead, the prosecutor returned to court with an application asking Judge Tsoho to modify his earlier directive and keep al Barnawi and associates under the surveillance of the Department of State Service (DSS), the country’s secret police. This request was granted on 25 April 2017, but would later lead to Tsoho being disqualified from the trial after the suspects accused him of bias. Nothing has been reported to the media since then, as the ensuing trials appear to have been held in secret. “He [al Barnawi] later transferred to Kuje [prison], another official at Kuje Correctional Center, as the prison is officially known, told The Daily Beast privately. “Since the attack, no one knows where he is.” A DSS official also told the Daily Beast that al-Barnawi was not in the agency’s custody, but had been “sent to Kuje prison a long time ago.” “They [Kuje prison officials] I have had him for some time,” the official said, but did not elaborate on when Al Barnawi was transferred. “He’s not with DSS.” How terrorists managed to attack a well-run facility right next to the nation’s capital with such ease shows that Nigeria’s security system has just been challenged. A popular local news website, the Foundation for Investigative Journalism, reported that the attackers had so much free time on their hands that they first delivered a 15-minute Koranic lecture to the prisoners before releasing them and even spent time sharing transport fares with the jihadists. came to the rescue.
Sadiq Adelakun/Xinhua via Getty Images
According to the prison official who spoke to The Daily Beast, the attackers even tried to get to the cell of disgraced “super cop” Abba Kyari, who has been in Kuje prison since March after he was arrested for alleged involvement in a smuggling cartel. cocaine. The officer was kept in a heavily fortified cell near the main gate that was difficult to penetrate. “They were asking other prisoners, ‘where is Abba Kyari?’” the official said. “It was clear they wanted to attack him, but when they couldn’t get to him, they left.” Once hailed as Nigeria’s most decorated police officer, Kyari, a Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of the force’s Intelligence Response Team (IRT) until his suspension, was awarded a Presidential Medal of Valor by Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari in 2016 after his team rescued three kidnapped schoolgirls in Lagos. He won the Lagos State Government’s top award for bravery for three consecutive years, from 2011 and 2013, for successfully bringing down high-profile criminal gangs and kidnapping rings. But an FBI indictment linking him to money launderer Ramon Abbas, also known as Hushpuppi, who is awaiting sentencing in a US court for his role in cybercrimes, led to his suspension last August by police of Nigeria. He was jailed after he was caught on camera trying to bribe a narcotics officer for a cocaine deal. Kyari remains in custody despite the attack that destroyed part of Kuje Prison, but the hardened terrorists, freed by their comrades, continue to pose a security threat to so many Nigerians. Their escape from prison exposes the weakness of the country’s security apparatus to the surprise of even the commander-in-chief. “I am disappointed with the intelligence system,” President Buhari told journalists after learning of the level of damage in the prison. “How can terrorists organize, have weapons, attack a security facility and get away with it?”
