The leader of Boko Haram, Abubakar
Shekau, resurfaced in a video posted online Sunday, rejecting assertions by the
Nigerian army that he had been seriously wounded.
"You have been spreading in the
social media that you injured or killed me," Shekau said in the 40-minute
video released on Youtube and dated September 25.
"Oh tyrants, I'm in a happy
state, in good health and in safety."
The Nigerian army said on August 23
that the longtime militant chief had been seriously wounded in the shoulder in
an air raid in which several commanders were killed.
Nigerian authorities have reported
him dead several times before, but the army's latest claim was bolstered when
Boko Haram -- which pledged allegiance last year to the Islamic State (IS)
group -- released a video on September 13 without Shekau in it.
However, in the video released
Sunday, Shekau points to a date on an Islamic calendar corresponding to
September 25, 2016.
Speaking in Hausa, Arabic and
English and in dialects spoken in northeast Nigeria he appears to be in good
physical health.
He uses the video to issue threats
against President Muhammadu Buhari, who appealed to the United Nations this
week for help in negotiating the release of the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped by
the militants more than two years ago.
"If you want your girls, bring
back our brethren," Shekau says.
Boko Haram, which has killed at
least 20,000 people since 2009 in its quest for a hardline Islamist state in
northeast Nigeria, has been in the grip of a power struggle since late last
year.
Last month, IS high command said
Shekau had been replaced as leader by Abu Musab al-Barnawi, the 22-year-old son
of Boko Haram's founder Mohammed Yusuf.
But the shadowy Shekau has
maintained he is still in charge.
The first signs of a rift appeared
after Shekau pledged allegiance to IS in March 2015 and changed Boko Haram's
name to Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP).
Clashes have since been reported
between rival Boko Haram factions in Nigeria's northeastern Borno State, near
Lake Chad.
Barnawi, once a protege of Shekau,
has criticised his former mentor for his indiscriminate killing of civilians --
most of them fellow Muslims.
He had also criticised the brutal
leadership style of Shekau, alleging he has secretly killed top militant
commanders who disagreed with him.
Security analysts have said the
split could indicate a shift in focus by the pro-Barnawi faction away from
targeting crowded marketplaces and mosques to hitting military and government
targets.
Along with the tens of thousands
killed, Boko Haram has also made more than 2.8 million people homeless, fleeing
attacks on villages by ransacking militants in a conflict that has spilled over
Nigeria's borders into Niger, Chad and Cameroon.
But it was the mass kidnapping of
276 schoolgirls from the northeastern town of Chibok in July 2015 that brought
unprecedented attention to Boko Haram, sparking a global campaign to
"Bring Back Our Girls".
Nigerian soldiers, with the support
of regional troops, have recaptured swathes of territory lost to the jihadists
since they launched a military campaign in February 2014.
Oil-rich Nigeria is facing security
threats on multiple fronts: Boko Haram in the northeast, ethnic violence in the
central region, Biafran separatists in the southeast and militants attacking
oil infrastructure in the south.
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