Nigeria Claims Boko Haram Leader ‘Fatally Wounded’ in Air Raid
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Abubakr Shekau’s death couldn’t be independently verified.
Nigeria’s military claimed Tuesday that its airstrikes had killed several top Boko Haram commanders and “fatally wounded” the group’s leader Abubakr Shekau, as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Africa’s most populous nation for talks on counterterrorism strategy.
The military said an “unprecedented and spectacular air raid” had hit the militants as they were performing Friday prayers in the sprawling Sambisa forest, the main base for a jihadist insurgency that is estimated to have left some 20,000 people dead and one million homeless.
Mr. Shekau, who in recent months has been embroiled in a power struggle to lead the militant group, was “fatally wounded on his shoulders,” the military said.
The claims of Mr. Shekau’s demise were impossible to verify independently and left several unanswered questions, including how the severity of Mr. Shekau’s wounds were gauged.
The military has declared Mr. Shekau dead on at least three previous occasions, only for a man claiming to be the Boko Haram leader reappear on videos. The militant Islamist group had no immediate response to Tuesday’s announcement by the military.
Col. Sani Usman, an army spokesman, said there was no reason to doubt the “authentic and very clear” information.
“We have a process through which the military confirms it’s information… we’re not going to make that public because we’re in a state of war,” he said.
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