Army Examining Reports On Boko Haram Leader, Shekau – Spokesperson

The Nigerian Army has said that it is investigating the reports implying that Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau is “badly injured” and “dead”.

There had been reports that the Boko Haram leader Shekau was seriously wounded after trying to kill himself to avoid capture during clashes with rival Islamic State-allied jihadists in the north of the country.

However, reports came that the Shekau is dead.

AFP, while quoting intelligence sources on Thursday, documented that after a series of clashes, Shekau and some of his fighters were enclosed on Wednesday by ISWAP jihadists in Boko Haram’s Sambisa forest stronghold, where they demanded he surrendered.

“To avoid capture, Shekau shot himself in the chest and the bullet pierced his shoulder,” the source said, adding, “He was badly injured.”

Nigeria’s army spokesman Mohammed Yerima when contacted neither denied nor confirm the reports on Shekau.

“We are investigating,” Nigeria’s army spokesman Mohammed Yerima told AFP by text, asked about those reports.

Shekau’s critical injury or death would be a blow to his Boko Haram faction which has already been undermined by military air strikes on its bases and defections among his men.

Shekau, who made international headlines when his men kidnapped nearly 300 schoolgirls in Chibok in 2014, has been reported dead several times since Boko Haram first began its insurgency in 2009, an intelligence source stated .

Boko Haram and ISWAP have fought battles for control of territory in the past.

ISWAP has emerged as the stronger force, carrying out complex attacks on the military and overrunning army bases.

Shekau took over Boko Haram, formally known as the Jama’tu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad, after its founder Muhammad Yusuf was killed by police in 2009.

Under Shekau’s leadership, Boko Haram turned large swathes of the northeast into a no-go territory, proclaiming a “caliphate” in the Borno town of Gwoza in 2014.

Angered by Shekau’s indiscriminate targeting of civilians and use of women and children suicide bombers, a rival faction broke away in 2016 to become ISWAP with the backing of the Islamic State group.