ARMY SAYS ISWAP COMMANDER OHIDA IS DEAD IN OWO FOREST AND THE ATTACK FILE IS STILL MOSTLY SOURCE CLAIMS
Major Innocent Olamale of 32 Artillery Brigade, Akure, confirmed an intelligence led joint operation killed an ISWAP commander in Owo. Security sources named him Abdussamad Ohida, also called Anwar, and said other fighters died in the raid. The Ondo government said the camp was hit 19 days after Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa’s forest ultimatum. Claims that Ohida planned Yuletide and 2027 attacks, and that UK partners corroborated the intelligence, come from unnamed sources, not from the Army spokesman.
A joint security team killed a man the Nigerian Army has identified as an ISWAP commander in the Owo forest of Ondo State over the weekend. The Army confirmation is one sentence. The rest of the file, including the plot he was said to be finishing, comes from unnamed security sources.
Major Innocent Olamale, assistant director of Army public relations at 32 Artillery Brigade in Akure, confirmed the operation on Monday. “Yes, it was a joint operation which intelligently led to the execution of the ISWAP commander,” he said. He gave no casualty figure, no time of contact, and no inventory of what was recovered. TimesNG reported the death as Sunday, in forest around Owo, the headquarters of Owo local government.
Security sources, quoted by BusinessDay, Legit.ng and TVC, named the dead commander as Abdussamad Ohida, also known as Anwar. They said several other members of the group were killed in a surprise attack on a forest hideout. The agencies named in those accounts are the Nigerian Army, the Department of State Services, and the Western Nigeria Security Network, known as Amotekun. A statement from the governor’s senior special assistant on forestry, Bidemi Joshua Obayangban, added the Nigeria Police Force and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps to the list. The Army spokesman’s public line names the joint operation and the commander. It does not itemise every service.
The Ondo government placed the raid 19 days after Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa issued a 14 day ultimatum telling kidnappers, bandits and other criminal groups to leave the state’s forest reserves. The deadline had already passed when the camp was hit. Neighbouring Ekiti, Ogun and Oyo have since tightened forest patrols and border checks, according to local reports. A dead commander in Owo does not clear those reserves. It does mark the first public case, in this sweep, of a named Islamic State West Africa Province figure killed in the south west rather than in Borno or the north central belt.
Sources said Ohida took charge of ISWAP work across parts of north central and southern Nigeria after the DSS arrested Abu Ikrimah, also known as Abu Uwais, in 2023. Ohida had been his deputy. The same sources said he was in the late stage of planning attacks in southern states, including against civilians in the Christmas period, and that the aim included disruption of the 2027 elections. One account said intelligence partners from the United Kingdom corroborated the material and supported the operation. None of that is in Olamale’s sentence. A second source told Legit.ng that the death, months after the killing of an Islamic State figure named in that report as Abu Bilal al Minuki, would slow ISWAP’s push south. That is an assessment, not a body count.
Military reports cited by BusinessDay link Ohida to two earlier attacks. One is the 31 December 2025 raid on the Ipele divisional police station in Owo, in which insurgents were said to have taken eight rifles and then destroyed the building with explosives. The other is the 28 July 2022 attack on a checkpoint on the Suleja to Zuba road in Niger State, in which officers, soldiers and civilians were killed. Those links are attributions in the current briefing. They have not been restated, with evidence, by the Army spokesman this week. Owo already carries the memory of the June 2022 attack on St Francis Catholic Church, which killed dozens of worshippers and was later claimed in the Islamic State orbit. This weekend’s raid is not that case. It is being read against it, because the forest is the same axis.
What is confirmed is narrow. A joint, intelligence led operation took place in Owo forest over the weekend. The Army says it killed an ISWAP commander. Multiple security and government accounts name him Abdussamad Ohida, also called Anwar, and say other fighters died with him. The state government says the raid followed a missed ultimatum to quit the reserves.
What is not confirmed is the plot, the foreign role, and the older attack file. No court has tested the name. ISWAP has not issued a public acknowledgement in the reports available this morning. Olamale said more detail was not being given. Until the Army or the DSS publishes a statement that matches the source claims, the Christmas and election plot remains an allegation from people who will not be quoted by name, attached to a death the brigade has confirmed.
