Battles between rival terror groups in the Lake Chad basin are causing residents to flee and stirring panic in surrounding communities and countries. Local residents and security experts say Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) are fighting more for control of the region and its critical trade corridors than for ideological reasons.
A bloody clash between the groups in early November on a Lake Chad island community in Borno State, Nigeria, exemplified the rivalry’s growing intensity.
Security analyst Zagazola Makama told Nigeria’s Tell magazine that Boko Haram executed a coordinated nighttime assault, overrunning ISWAP camps, seizing ammunition and equipment and killing almost 200 rival fighters. It was the culmination of several days of fighting between the former allies and represented a full campaign for control of the region.
ISWAP had dominated Lake Chad islands since 2021, after the death of Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau. According to Nigerian newspaper The Guardian, Boko Haram has vowed to eliminate ISWAP from the islands and seize its rival’s lucrative supply corridors along Nigeria’s borders with Cameroon, Chad and Niger.
“The Lake Chad Basin is a crucial corridor,” Amadu Mohammed, 62, who has spent more than 40 years fishing in Lake Chad and River Niger, told The Africa Report magazine. “Whoever wins the islands wins the money [from the taxes on fishermen, farmers and pastoralists], the food, the smuggling routes and the power in the whole region. That’s why they are killing each other over it right now, even more than when they fight the few armies on the islands.
“If it was an ideological battle, while the war rages, fighters from both sides would have intensified spreading their ideologies in villages where they control and in rival villages,” Mohammed added.
Hundreds Dead
Recent clashes between the rivals have killed hundreds on both sides and injured many more. Local sources told The Africa Report that Boko Haram was gaining momentum with support from foreign allies.
“Their fighters on the islands are determined and well-supported by mercenaries from Chad and Libya,” one source told the magazine.
With Boko Haram focused on seizing Lake Chad, ISWAP has increased attacks on surrounding villages, launching ambushes, and abducting and taxing residents, who have complained that a protecting military presence in the islands and surrounding villages, particularly in Borno State, is far lower than in towns and cities.
“The jihadists have been fighting without any interruption from the security forces of any of the countries near the islands,” a local resident named James told The Africa Report. “We do not know if they are deliberately avoiding the terror groups, but it is certain that the winner will decide our future.”
Nigerian forces have had some success against Boko Haram and ISWAP. Over the last seven months of 2025, Operation Hadin Kai killed 438 Boko Haram and ISWAP terrorists. The operation’s objective is to eliminate Boko Haram in the Lake Chad region and around northeastern Nigeria. Maj. Gen. Abdulsalam Abubakar, who leads the operation, said troops also recovered 254 assorted weapons, 300 units of Starlink communication devices and rescued 366 civilians from various terrorist enclaves, Nigeria’s The Nation Newspaper reported.
Residents Flee
Both groups have committed mass atrocities against civilians. Aware that violence could spill from the Lake Chad basin into surrounding communities, many residents on the Nigerian side have left their homes.
Boko Haram-ISWAP battles throughout 2025 were marked by increasingly sophisticated operations, constant small-scale abductions and significant money derived from high-profile abductions.
“I am really scared of the state of security in Borno these days because of the magnitude of reports and news I see online about attacks by Boko Haram,” Victor Moses, a car parts dealer in Maiduguri, told African magazine The Hum Angle. “It is too much. Every day, I scroll through my Facebook feed and see reports of Boko Haram attacks. What worries me most is that it’s happening right on our doorstep.”
Over the last year or so, ISWAP has made technological advances which aid its expanded attacks and operations. The group now uses artificial intelligence for video editing and the editing of written electronic communications, leverages surveillance technology and high-speed satellite internet, and employs weaponized drones to record footage of their prayers and sermons for public relations purposes, The Hum Angle reported.
