Nigerian Army: Boko Haram militant leader ‘fatally wounded’

The assailants are also accused of raping several women and kidnapping many others from the Nigerian village.

Usman listed the killed Boko Haram leaders to include Abubakar Mubi, Malam Nuhu and Malam Hamman.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari did not address the reported air raid on the militants and Kerry did not raise it in their meeting in Abuja, a senior State Department official said.

An army spokesman said warplanes struck as the militants met for Friday prayers last week at a village deep within the Sambisa forest in Borno State.

Shekau, who has recently been at the centre of a power struggle within Boko Haram, was “believed to be fatally wounded on his shoulders”, Mr Usman said, without giving further details.

There was no immediate reaction from the group, which only communicates with the media by videos. For the army, successfully locating and killing such high-value targets is a triumph for its intelligence gathering efforts which have often been overshadowed by its seeming adoption of excessive force against locals in the troubled northeast as part of efforts to fight Boko Haram.

FILE – In his file image taken from video released late Friday evening, October 31, 2014, by Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, centre, the leader of Nigeria’s Islamic extremist speaks in an unidentified place.

Meanwhile, a mob in northern Nigeria has killed eight people after torching the house of a man who tried to save a Christian student accused of blasphemy, police said Tuesday.

Islam noted that the Nigerian Armed Forces are well known for their contributions to peace support operations worldwide and have contributed tremendously to world and regional peace.

Shekau previously pledged allegiance to ISIS in March 2015, and the terrorist organisation appointed the previous spokesperson for Boko Haram Abu Musab Al-Barnawi as the new head of the movement at the beginning of August. It is open question whether Shekau even leads Boko Haram, however, as the Islamic State group spurred an internal leadership crisis in the organization earlier this month.

The announcement came as the U.S. secretary of state, John Kerry, arrived in Nigeria and pledged his country’s support in fighting the extremist group, which has killed more than 20,000 people and displaced millions. “Extremism can not be defeated through repression or just creating fear”.