Nigerian Army Says It Killed Man Acting as Boko Haram Leader

By Elisha Bala-Gbogbo and Daniel Magnowski

Photographer: Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP via Getty Images

A poster showing a photograph of Boko Haram Leader Abubakar Shekau sits by the road in... Read More

The Nigerian military said a man who appeared in recent videos claiming to be the leader of the Islamist militant group Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, was killed in a battle last week.
The man, identified as Mohammed Bashir, died when government troops defending the northeastern town of Konduga killed some top Boko Haram commanders in an attack on a convoy of rebel vehicles on Sept. 17, Nigeria’s Defence Headquarters said late yesterday in an e-mailed statement.
Bashir “has been acting or posing on videos as the deceased Abubakar Shekau, the eccentric character known as leader of the group,” the army said.
While the army said last year it
killed Shekau, it didn’t provide proof of his death. A man declaring himself to be Shekau appeared later in videos to disprove the military’s claims, prompting allegations by security agencies that he was an impostor.

Boko Haram: Nigeria's Latest Jihad

The U.S. State Department continues to offer a bounty of up to $7 million for “information that brings to justice” Shekau, according to its Rewards for Justice website.
Boko Haram, which has been battling the Nigerian state since 2009, killed more than 4,000 people in the past 12 months, Maplecroft, the Bath, U.K.-based risk consultancy, said this month. More than 350,000 people in the northeastern states where the violence is fiercest have fled their homes this year, according to Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency.

British Assistance

President Goodluck Jonathan, whose government said previously it was close to crushing Boko Haram, this year began describing the group as an expanding al-Qaeda-backed threat to Africa.
“Evidence has shown that Boko Haram is resourced largely from outside our country,” Jonathan told a meeting of the United Nations Security Council yesterday, his office said. The group has killed more than 13,000 people in the past five years, it said.
Jonathan, who met British Prime Minister David Cameron in New York this week, urged the U.K. to increase its assistance in the areas of intelligence gathering, training and logistics, his office said in an e-mailed statement today.

Schoolgirls Kidnapped

Countries including the U.K. and the U.S. stepped up support for the Nigerian counterinsurgency effort after Boko Haram kidnapped more than 200 girls from their school dormitory in the northeastern town of Chibok in April.
The Nigerian military said the insurgents have been trying to take over towns close to the Borno state capital, Maiduguri, which it described as their “prime target.” Konduga is about 40 kilometers (25 miles) southeast of Maiduguri.
On Sept. 4, the U.S. said Boko Haram would try to mount an assault on Maiduguri.
At least 135 Islamists who surrendered to the troops on Sept. 23 in the northeastern town of Biu are being interrogated, the army said.