“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” flung some seven million Nigerians into hunger, thirst, and desperate need”.
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The Premium Times reports that military spokesman Col. Sani Usman explained that “the air interdiction took place last week Friday 19th August 2016, while the terrorists were performing Friday rituals at Taye”, a remote village located deep in the vast Sambisa forest.
She told VOA last week that her daughter, Dorcas, was 15 years old in April 2014 when she was taken with almost 300 other girls from a secondary school in the town of Chibok in northeastern Nigeria. The account leaves unanswered questions of how the military knew the wounds were fatal, and how it could be so specific about a shoulder injury when the attack came from the air.
Islamic extremist leader Abubakar Shekau was said to have died along with 300 militants during the air raid on Friday.
Boko Haram which means “Western education is forbidden resurfaced as a deadly force under Shekau, who took over after a military raid on the group’s compound in Maiduguri, the biggest city in the northeast, killed some 700 people and captured leader Mohammed Yusuf was assassinated in police custody. There are far too many who join the ranks of these organisations because they have trouble finding meaning in their lives”.
In May, U.S. officials told Reuters Washington wanted to sell up to 12 A-29 Super Tucano light attack aircraft to Nigeria in recognition of Buhari’s reform of the country’s army.
The military had made “important progress” in the fight against Boko Haram in recent months by recapturing large pieces of territory previously controlled by the terrorists, Kerry said during a press conference in the northern town of Sokoto, broadcast on national television.
Nigeria claimed to have killed Shekau in several previous raids – only for the leader to surface shortly afterwards in videos.
“Meanwhile, a man identified as the “spiritual leader” of Boko Haram in Nigeria” s northwestern state of Kano has been arrested, together with other insurgents plotting to carry out attacks in the country, security authorities said Monday.
Shekau’s death was reported in 2013 and again in September 2014. That October, Shekau appeared in a video mocking these claims.
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Boko Haram, which past year pledged allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has been on the defensive in recent months after President Buhari revamped the military’s counterterrorism strategy.
