Analysts said Shekau’s declaration is indicative of the possibility of a break by Boko Haram from the Islamic State group and possible return to the influence of al-Qaida.
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Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau speaks at an unknown location in this still image taken from an undated video released by Nigerian Islamist rebel group Boko Haram.
“People should know we are still around”, Shekau said in the ten-minute message released yesterday. “And now I find myself being forced to follow another character who practices disbelief”.
Under the past leadership of Shekau, the group became more radical, and carried out more killings, overtaking ISIL to become the deadliest terrorist organisation in the world.
The interview with al-Barnawi indicates a major change in strategy for the Nigerian extremists, who have attacked mosques with suicide bombers and gunmen, blown up suicide bombers in crowded marketplaces and killed and kidnapped school children.
The Defence Headquarters (DHQ), says the announcement of a new Boko Haram leader is irrelevant and inconsequential to the military’s operation in the north east. The Director of Defence Information, DHQ, Brig.-Gen.
Last week, Boko Haram ambushed a humanitarian convoy, killing three civilians including a United Nations employee and causing the suspension of United Nations aid to Nigeria’s northeast.
Boko Haram has fought a long war with the Nigerian army and is thought to have killed up to 17,000 people, many of them Christians.
ISIS announced the appointment of Abu Musab al-Barnawi, former Boko Haram’s spokesperson in one of its magazines.
Boko Haram has been weakened by an aggressive fightback from the Nigerian military that began in January 2014, losing territory and its capacity to mount conventional attacks.
However, in the past 18 months, Boko Haram’s allegiance to ISIS has not helped the group gain any ground in Nigeria.
However, in another message, Boko Haram maintained it was a potent fighting force, with men holding AK-47s posing in front of Toyota Hilux pick-up trucks and a lorry mounted with a military cannon.
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Although an interview with Barnawi, which appeared in the weekly Arabic-language al-Naba publication, did not explicitly state that he has replaced Shekau, it did raise speculation that the group may now be fully and publicly governed by someone else.
