Boko Haram boasts from the bush

KANO, NIGERIA // Abubakar Shekau, Boko Haram’s elusive leader, appeared in a video released yesterday to dispute a claim that the extremist group had been forced from its Sambisa Forest stronghold.

“We are safe. We have not been flushed out of anywhere. And tactics and strategies cannot reveal our location except if Allah wills by his decree,” Shekau said in the 25-minute video, flanked by masked, armed gunmen.

“You should not be telling lies to the people,” he said, referring to Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari, who said on Christmas Eve that the extremist group had been defeated and driven from the forest, its lastknown bastion.

“If you indeed crushed us, how can you see me like this? How many times have you killed us in your bogus death?” he said. It was not clear where the latest video was taken, but Shekau, who spoke in Hausa and Arabic, said it was filmed on Christmas Day. Shekau last appeared in a video in September, when he disputed a claim by the Nigerian military that he had been wounded in battle.

He promised to continue fighting on until an “Islamic state” was imposed in northern Nigeria.

“The war is not over yet. There is still more,” he said, vowing no respite for Nigerians.

He urged his followers around the world to “fight and kill infidels”.

“Our aim is to establish an Islamic caliphate and we have our own caliphate, we are not part of Nigeria.”

Boko Haram, which last year pledged allegiance to ISIL, has recently been in the grip of a power struggle. The ISIL high command said in August that Shekau had been replaced as leader by Abu Musab Al Barnawi, the 22-year-old son of Boko Haram’s founder, Mohammed Yusuf.

The new video came after Buhari announced last week that a months-long military campaign in the 1,300 square-kilometre forest in north-eastern Borno state had led to the “final crushing of Boko Haram terrorists in their last enclave in Sambisa Forest”.

The government in Abuja and the military have frequently claimed victories against Boko Haram but access to the epicentre of the conflict is strictly controlled, making independent verification difficult. Attacks meanwhile, have continued, casting doubt over claims that Boko Haram has been defeated, despite undoubted progress in pushing back the group. Boko Haram is engaged in a seven-year-old uprising against the Nigerian state that has claimed more than 20,000 lives, with the insurgency spilling over into neighbouring West African states.

The insurgency has left about 2.6 million people homeless, sparking a humanitarian crisis, with the United Nations warning the affected region faces the “largest crisis in Africa”.

The UN estimates that 14 million people will need external help next year because of the violence, particularly in Borno state, the extremist group’s heartland.