Tuesday 20 August 2013

Boko Haram Commander Shekau Killed At Last?

There is tension in the security circles over the reported killing of the leader of the Boko Haram Islamic sect, Abubakar Shekau, by operatives of the Joint Task Force in Borno State.

The spokesman of the JTF, Col. Sagir Musa, said in a statement on Monday that the Boko Haram leader died of gunshot wounds he sustained during the invasion of the Sambisa Forest.

Curiously, the Director of Defence Information, Brig. Gen Chris Olukolade, referred our correspondent to the headquarters of the JTF in Borno State, when he was contacted for further confirmation.

Ordinarily, the killing of the most wanted terror leader, who has a $7m bounty on his head, would have been celebrated by all security agencies but the situation appears to be different in the absence of evidence of his death.

But Col. Musa insisted that intelligence reports at the disposal of the JTF showed that: “Abubakar Shekau, the most dreaded and wanted Boko Haram terrorist, may have died.”

The JTF spokesman said the Boko Haram leader was seriously wounded in the attack at Sambisa on June 30, 2013, by the special forces and was taken to a border community in the nation’s border with Cameroun, identified as Amitchide, for treatment.

He said Shekau did not recover from the gunshot wounds he sustained at the Sambisa Forest.

The statement said, “Shekau was mortally wounded in the encounter and was sneaked into Amitchide – a border community in Cameroun for treatment, from which he never recovered. It is greatly believed that Shekau might have died between July 25 and August 3, 2013." 
Col. Musa added that a video released purportedly by the Boko Haram leader on August 13, 2013, was a deceit by a member of the sect to convince members to continue with the insurgency. He urged members of the sect to lay down their arms and accept the Federal Government’s offer of dialogue.

Musa added that the video was “dramatised by an imposter to hoodwink the sect members to continue with terrorism and to deceive undiscerning minds”.
Is Shekau truly dead? Can we believe the JTF this time?

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