File: Nigerian soldiers, with the support of regional troops, have recaptured swathes of territory lost to the jihadist Boko Haramsince they launched a military campaign in February 2014. Photo: via Wikimedia Commons
KANO - Abubakar Shekau, the embattled leader of jihadist group Boko Haram, resurfaced in a video posted online on 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 says in the 40-minute video released on YouTube and dated 25 September.
"Oh tyrants, I'm in a happy state, in good health and in safety."
Are we witnessing BHT 2.0 or a higher version?@HQNigerianArmy shld clear d bastion that harbor d madmanhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSZ9vszAooo&sns=tw …
The Nigerian army said on 23 August that Shekau had been seriously wounded in the shoulder in an air raid in which several commanders were killed.
The army's claim was bolstered when Boko Haram released a video on 13 September without Shekau in it.
That video, also posted on YouTube, shows an unidentified man who says he is representing Shekau, who had allegedly been ousted by the Islamic State group to which Boko Haram pledged allegiance in March 2015.
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.
The mass kidnapping of schoolgirls from the remote town of Chibok provoked global outrage and brought unprecedented attention to Boko Haram and its bloody quest to create a fundamentalist state in northeastern Nigeria.
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