The Boko Haram insurgency began in July 2009, when the militant Islamist and jihadist rebel group Boko Haram started an armed rebellion against the government of Nigeria. The conflict is taking place within the context of long-standing issues of religious violence between Nigeria's Muslim and Christian communities, and the insurgents' ultimate aim is to establish an Islamic state in the region. Boko Haram's initial uprising failed, and its leader Mohammed Yusuf was killed by the Nigerian government. He began the group in the year 2002, with a view of opposing western education with his followers. He was arrested at his parent's inlaws house by the Nigerian Military and subsequently handed over to the Nigerian police. He was survived by four wives and 12 children one of which was Abu Musab al-Barnawi who in the year 2016 wanted to lead the group. The movement consequently fractured into autonomous groups and started an insurgency, though rebel commander Abubakar Shekau managed to achieve a kind of primacy among the insurgents. Though challenged by internal rivals, such as Abu Usmatul al-Ansari's Salafist conservative faction and the Ansaru faction, Shekau became the insurgency's de facto leader and mostly kept the different Boko Haram factions from fighting each other, instead focusing on overthrowing the Nigerian government. Supported by other jihadist organizations including al-Qaeda and al-Shabaab, Shekau's tactics were marked by extreme brutality and explicit targeting of civilians. After years of fighting, the insurgents became increasingly aggressive and began to seize large areas in northeastern Nigeria. The violence escalated dramatically in 2014 with 10.849 deaths, while Boko Haram drastically expanded its territories. At the same time, the insurgency spread to neighboring Cameroon, Chad, Mali, and Niger, thus becoming a major regional conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa. Meanwhile, Shekau attempted to improve his international standing among jihadists by tacitly aligning with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in March 2015, with Boko Haram becoming the "Islamic State's West Africa Province" (ISWAP). The insurgents were driven back during the 2015 West African offensive by a Nigeria-led coalition of African and Western countries, forcing the Islamists to retreat into Sambisa Forest and bases at Lake Chad. Discontent about various issues consequently grew among Boko Haram. Dissidents among the movement allied themselves with IS' central command and challenged Shekau's leadership, resulting in a violent split of the insurgents. Since then, Shekau and his group are generally referred to as "Boko