The leader of the dreaded Boko Haram sect — Abubakar Shekau has dismissed Nigerian military claims of his death in a new video.
“Here I am, alive. I will only die the day God takes my breath,” Shekau said, adding that his group was “running our … Islamic caliphate” and administering strict sharia punishments.
Nigeria’s military said last week that Shekau
was dead and that a man who had been posing as the group’s leader in
the videos had been killed after fighting with troops in the far
northeast.
Security analysts and the United States questioned the credibility of the military’s claim.
The new 36-minute video showed Shekau, in
combat fatigues and black rubber boots, standing on the back of a
pick-up truck and firing an anti-aircraft gun into the air.
Standing in front of three camouflaged vans
and flanked by four heavily armed, masked fighters, he then speaks for
16 minutes in Arabic and the Hausa language widely spoken in northern
Nigeria.
There was no indication of where or when the video was shot.
The heavily bearded Shekau, who appeared to
be the same as those in previous clips, said the military’s claim that
he was dead was propaganda.
“Nothing will kill me until my days are
over … I’m still alive. Some people asked you if Shekau has two souls.
No, I have one soul, by Allah,” he said, apparently reading from a script.
“It is propaganda that is prevalent. I have one soul. I’m an Islamic student.
“I’m the Islamic student whose seminary you burnt … I’m not dead,” he added, apparently referring to the destruction of the group’s mosque in the Borno state capital, Maiduguri, in 2009.
There have been two previous claims by
Nigeria’s security forces that Shekau was dead — once in 2009 during
unrest in Maiduguri — and again in 2013.
Following each previous claim Boko Haram has issued denials in video messages.
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