{"id":73429,"date":"2025-08-17T20:17:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T20:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=73429"},"modified":"2025-08-17T20:17:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T20:17:09","slug":"security-forces-capture-leaders-of-terror-groups-in-major-operation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/08\/17\/security-forces-capture-leaders-of-terror-groups-in-major-operation\/","title":{"rendered":"Security Forces Capture Leaders of Terror Groups in Major Operation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Onilede Titi Faith<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Nigeria\u2019s fight against terrorism recorded a major breakthrough at the weekend with the arrest of two notorious militant leaders behind several high-profile attacks.<\/p>\n<p>National Security Adviser (NSA), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, confirmed that the intelligence-led operation led to the capture of Mahmud Muhammad Usman (alias Abu Baraa), self-styled Emir of the al-Qaeda-linked Ansaru group, and his deputy, Mahmud al-Nigeri, leader of the \u201cMahmudawa\u201d network.<\/p>\n<p>Both men, on Nigeria\u2019s most-wanted list for years, have been linked to the 2022 Kuje prison jailbreak, the 2013 abduction of a French engineer, and an attempted assault on a uranium facility. They are also said to have maintained ties with jihadist cells across the Sahel.<\/p>\n<p>In a parallel operation, the Department of State Services (DSS) announced the arrest of Abubakar Abba, leader of Mahmuda, a terror group active in Nigeria\u2019s central region.<\/p>\n<p>Niger State Governor Umaru Bago hailed the success, attributing it to President Bola Tinubu\u2019s leadership, and commended security agencies for ensuring the operation was bloodless.<\/p>\n<p>Authorities disclosed that critical digital intelligence was recovered, which is expected to aid further arrests and the dismantling of remaining terror networks.<\/p>\n<p>NSA Ribadu described Usman\u2019s arrest as \u201ca decisive blow to Ansaru\u2019s command structure\u201d, stressing that it could significantly reduce the group\u2019s operational capacity nationwide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Onilede Titi Faith Nigeria\u2019s fight against terrorism recorded a major breakthrough at the weekend with the arrest of two notorious militant leaders behind several high-profile attacks. National Security Adviser (NSA), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, confirmed that the intelligence-led operation led to the capture of Mahmud Muhammad Usman (alias Abu Baraa), self-styled Emir of the al-Qaeda-linked [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":73430,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[182,172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-defence-and-security","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73429"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73431,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73429\/revisions\/73431"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}