Nigeria’s military claimed today to have seriously injured Boko Haram’s elusive leader Abubakar Shekau and killed other commanders in an air strike on the Islamist group’s forest stronghold.
Advertisement
At a press conference in Sokoto, the USA top official specifically praised Nigeria for reclaiming swathes of territory from Boko Haram and releasing thousands of hostages over the past year.Nigeria has made “important progress”, Kerry said in a report by the Agence France Presse (AFP).
Nigeria has made “important progress”, Kerry said.
“It is understandable that, in the wake of terrorist activity, some are tempted to crack down on anyone and everyone who could theoretically pose some sort of threat”, Kerry said. “It creates terrorists, trust creates citizens”.
PR Nigeria, an agency that distributes government news, released a video purportedly showing “declassified footage of the air operation”.
The report of Mr. Shekau’s alleged death came as Mr. Kerry arrived in Nigeria for meetings with President Muhammadu Buhari.
However, Nigeria has claimed they killed him three times in the past, only for him to later resurface in video and audio recordings.
Recall, shortly after the U.S. authorities declared Abubakar Shekau wanted and placed a $7 million bounty on him in 2013, the same Nigerian Army announced that Shekau was believed to have been shot on 30 June, when soldiers raided a Boko Haram base at Sambisa Forest in north-eastern Nigeria.
Barnawi’s appointment was contained in a magazine issued by the Islamic State group, to which Boko Haram pledged allegiance in March past year.
Kerry “made very, very strong commitments to the (Nigerian) government that we are going to look at what we can do differently”, the official said, adding that the package for the aircraft was still being considered and needed congressional approval.
Prior to the operations, the Air Force had on August 16 commenced series of Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) missions to corroborate human intelligence that key Boko Haram commanders had gathered at the said location to hold meeting at night.
The United States on Tuesday promised to support Northern Nigeria in the areas of education, health care and energy. “Nigeria is already a regional leader in many ways – economically and culturally – but you can also become a model in fighting corruption and the organized crime that so often goes along with it”, he said.
Boko Haram appears to be fractured by a leadership struggle after the Islamic State group recently announced it had a new leader.
“We [know] beating Boko Haram on the battlefield is only the beginning of what we must do”, Kerry said in a speech in the northern Nigerian city of Sokoto Tuesday.
Advertisement
Shekau started the uprising in 2009 that has killed 20,000 people, driven more than 2.2 million from their homes, spread across Nigeria’s borders and, in Kerry’s words, “flung some seven million Nigerians into hunger, thirst, and desperate need”.
