21 CHIBOK SCHOOL GIRLS FOUND

    

      Boko Haram militants handed over 21 missing Chibok school girls to the Nigerian government Thursday morning, according to a source with direct knowledge of the release.

The girls, who have not been named, remain in Maiduguri, the source said.

The militants herded the 276 girls out of bed at a school in Chibok in northern Nigeria in April 2014.

As many as 57 girls escaped and shared harrowing tales of fleeing from the nearby Sambisa Forest, believed to be the terrorist group's stronghold.

Dozens are still missing, and their whereabouts remain a mystery, but are believed to be somewhere in the forest. 

At the time, relatives roamed through the forest for days, frantically searching for the girls.

The kidnapping sparked global outrage and prompted global figures such as activist Malala Yousafzai and first lady Michelle Obama to support the campaign to #BringBackOurGirls.

Boko Haram recently split into two factions.

The new leader of Boko Haram is the son of the group's founder, according to a Boko Haram insider.

Abu Musab al-Barnawi is about 25 years old and the second son of Mohammed Yusuf, who founded the group in 2002, the source told CNN. Mohammed Yusuf was captured and executed after a clash with Nigerian security forces in 2009. 

The insider said there was a split in the ranks of the Boko Haram terror group three months ago, which led to Barnawi, known as Habib Yusuf within the group, to leave the Sambisa forest where Boko Haram are believed to be hiding out.

He re-emerged this week after he was introduced as the new leader of the terrorist sect in an interview in the ISIS' magazine al-Naba.Boko Haram has long had links with ISIS, pledging allegiance to the group in March.

 Even though Barnawi is now supposedly the leader of Boko Haram, the source told CNN that the group's long-time leader Abubakar Shekau still has the larger number of followers in the Sambisa forest and crucially has control of the abducted Chibok schoolgirls. The schoolgirls are seen as a powerful bargaining chip for the terrorist group, whose base has been significantly weakened. 

Western intelligence sources close to negotiations believe, however, that the defection of manpower and erosion of support leaves Shekau more exposed and could possibly lead to a breakthrough in the search for the abducted girls.

The Boko Haram source told CNN that Barnawi was Boko Haram's head of armory before he fell out with Shekau and left with some followers. The source said: "Shekau is seen as erratic and disorganized and Habib didn't agree with a lot of his decisions anymore." 

 It's been two years since the "Chibok girls" were stolen from their families. For the first time, we see some of the girls alive in a video obtained by CNN. This is who they are.