BREAKING NEWS: SHEKAU'S REINCARNATION, RELEASES NEW VIDEO

“I’m Alive, You Can’t Kill Me” – Boko
Haram Leader, Shekau Dismisses His
Death In New Video
Kano (Nigeria) (AFP) – Boko Haram leader
Abubakar Shekau dismissed Nigerian military
claims of his death in a new video obtained by
AFP on Thursday and said the militants had
implemented strict Islamic law in captured
towns.
“Here I am, alive. I will only die the day Allah
takes my breath,” Shekau said, adding that his
group was “running our… Islamic caliphate” and
administering strict sharia punishments.
Nigeria’s military said last week that Shekau was
dead and that a man who had been posing as the
group’s leader in the videos had been killed after
fighting with troops in the far northeast.
Security analysts and the United States
questioned the credibility of the military’s claim.
The new 36-minute video showed Shekau, in
combat fatigues and black rubber boots, standing
on the back of a pick-up truck and firing an anti-
aircraft gun into the air.
Standing in front of three camouflaged vans and
flanked by four heavily armed, masked fighters,
he then speaks for 16 minutes in Arabic and the
Hausa language widely spoken in northern
Nigeria.
View gallery
The shows Shekau firing an anti-aircraft gun into
the air from the back of a truck (AFP Photo/)
There was no indication of where or when the
video was shot.
The heavily bearded Shekau, who appeared to be
the same as those in previous clips, said the
military’s claim that he was dead was
propaganda.
“Nothing will kill me until my days are over…
I’m still alive. Some people asked you if Shekau
has two souls. No, I have one soul, by Allah,” he
said, apparently reading from a script.
“It is propaganda that is prevalent. I have one
soul. I’m an Islamic student.
“I’m the Islamic student whose seminary you
burnt… I’m not dead,” he added, apparently
referring to the destruction of the group’s
mosque in the Borno state capital, Maiduguri, in
2009.
There have been two previous claims by
Nigeria’s security forces that Shekau was dead —
once in 2009 during unrest in Maiduguri — and
again in 2013.
Following each previous claim Boko Haram has
issued denials in video messages.
Elsewhere in the new video, the militant leader
said the group had implemented strict Islamic
law in the towns that it had captured in recent
weeks.
“We are running our caliphate, our Islamic
caliphate. We follow the Koran… We now
practise the injunctions of the Koran in the land
of Allah,” he said.
The group also claimed to have shot down a
Nigerian air force jet that went missing nearly
three weeks ago.
An air force spokesman said the jet was missing.
“For any group to claim they shot it down is mere
propaganda and rubbish,” Air Commodore Dele
Alonge told AFP.