[GEPHARDTDAILY] A top commander of Boko Haram... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality...
has confessed to leading the abduction of schoolgirls from the town of Chibok and has surrendered to the Nigerian army in Borno State.
Auwal Ismaeela confessed to the kidnappings and other crimes, and was being interrogated at a military facility, the army said.
He has offered to help security agencies locate other commanders of the sect.
Ismaeela said he "led other squads" with another commander in the abduction of 276 schoolgirls from Chibok in 2014, according to an interview with PR Nigeria published Sunday.
In May, the Nigerian government said 82 of the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram were released, though more than 100 are still missing. The group released 21 of the girls last October and another 50 or so have escaped on their own,
Ismaeela said he led an operation in 2014 in which students and youths at the Central Secondary School in Sabon Garin Madagali were killed.
"It is unfortunate that I was brainwashed and misled not only on some abductions but in the killings of my own people that were innocent," he said. "I wholeheartedly regret my actions."
He said in one of the operations he kidnapped "my wife named Maryam who had two kids for me in Sambisa Forest."
And when Ismaeela led a battle in Konduga, he said he lost his right leg.
"Even at that, I did not stop fighting for the course," Ismaeela said. "Sheikh [Abubakar] Shekau ordered that I should be given a tricycle which I continued to use for various operations before I eventually surrendered."