The Nigerian Air Force has killed an undisclosed number of Boko Haram leaders during a raid on the Sambisa Forest hideout of the insurgents, Punch reports.
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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.
But the group was still able to post a video last week showing dozens of the kidnapped schoolgirls, many holding babies assumed to be the children of “marriages” with Boko Haram fighters.
He added that the confirmed casualties among the Boko Haram commanders included Abubakar Mubi, Malam Nuhu and Malam Hamman.
Air Marshal Abubakar did not however indicate that top Boko Haram commanders, including their elusive leader, Shekau, were among the victims.
He said, “The Nigerian Air Force has recorded another major success in the ongoing counter-insurgency and counter terrorism operation against the Boko Haram Terrorist sect in the North-East”. The mysterious Shekau’s fate has been the subject of speculation recently amid claims he had been replaced by Sheikh Abu Musab al-Barnawi, the group’s former spokesman. The military has said that Boko Haram was using look-alike fighters to impersonate the supposedly dead leader. The announcement has left many wondering how the Nigerian military knew it had killed Abubakar Shekau, or what proof did they have for their conquest.
Barnawi’s appointment was announced in a magazine issued by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group, to which Boko Haram pledged allegiance in March previous year.
The Islamist militant movement Boko Haram attacked a village near Chibok in northeastern Nigeria, killing 10 people and abducting 13 women at the weekend, the west African nation’s military said. The militants have killed an estimated 15,000 people in their fight to set up a religious state.
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During the Goodluck Jonathan presidency, the United States blocked arms sales and ended training of Nigerian troops partly over human rights concerns such as treatment of captured insurgents. But President Muhammadu Buhari, who took office past year, insists that Nigeria’s respect for human rights has improved.
