Just a day after it threatened to launch devastating attacks in the country in reaction to the controversial American film that denigrates Islam, Boko Haram has suffered heavy casualties in a surprise raid by Nigerian security operatives in Kano.

Entitled Innocence of Muslims, the movie has sparked protests in about a dozen countries, including Nigeria.

Details of the operation against Boko Haram (real name Jama’atu Ahlis Sunnah Lidda’awati Wal Jihad) are sketchy but reports indicate that several leaders of the violent Islamic sect are either dead or in custody.

While some reports have it that Boko Haram spokesman, Abu Qaqa (shown in photo), was killed during the raid, others have it that he is alive and in custody of the State Security Service (SSS) together with some other unnamed top leaders of the group.

The raid was launched by the Kano State Joint (Military) Task Force (JTF) following a tip-off on the hide-outs of major Boko Haram leaders in the northern Nigerian commercial hub which has repeatedly come under Boko Haram’s attacks.

“The Kano JTF has confirmed the raid and the arrests, but could not confirm the identity of the arrested Boko-Haram leaders,” said the Abuja-based online newspaper PREMIUM TIMES.

The raid, if as successful as claimed, may well signal the beginning of the end for Boko Haram.

News Express reports that just over the weekend, Boko Haram wrote to two sister radio stations in Kano, namely, Cool FM and Wazobia FM, threatening to attack them for employing many Christians and habouring some Muslim staff.

Based largely in Nigeria’s northwest, Boko Haram was founded in 2009 by Mallam Muhammad Yusuf, who resigned his appointment as a commissioner in the Borno State cabinet to concentrate on growing the sect. The group has killed over 1,500 people, according to unofficial sources.