Head of Boko Haram insurgents, Abubakar Shekau, has openly
taunted the countries planning a united effort to crush the
group.
In a video, where he claimed responsibility for the bloody
attack on the Nigerian town of Baga on January 3, Shekau
scorned the presidents of Chad, Cameroon and Niger, taunting
Chad’s Idriss Deby with the message: “African kings...I
challenge you to attack me now. I am ready”.
The Baga attack, in which hundreds of people were killed, was
called a crime against humanity by Washington and Paris.
In the video, just emerged on YouTube, Shekau also accused
Cameroon President, Paul Biya, of being too afraid to ask for
help in the face of the group’s ever-increasing belligerence.
Cameroon also suffered repeated attacks recently, including the
kidnapping of dozens of people, mostly women and children,
during a deadly attack on Sunday.
To Niger’s president, Mahamadou Issoufou, whom Shekau
noted, commiserated with France after the recent Islamist
attacks in Paris, said: “Muhammad Yusuf (Mahamadou Issou
fou), is that your job? Ah, ah, ah! Muhammad Yusuf, you will
see. President of Niger, you will see”, he said.
Shekau’s provocative video came as a regional summit opened
in Nigeria on Tuesday, aimed at stopping Boko Haram, whose
insurgency had left 13,000 people dead and forced 1.5 million
others from their homes since 2009.
Leaders from Ghana and Chad have called for a unified effort
against the Islamist militants.
Chad sent a convoy of troops and 400 military vehicles on
Saturday into neighbouring Cameroon to fight Boko Haram, as
Nigeria’s neighbours appeared to be losing patience with the
efforts of the Nigerian Army.
Little is known of “Shekau”, with some experts and Nigerian
security officials insisting that he is, in fact, a composite
character, whose role is taken by a rotating cast of different
militant fighters.
According to security services, the original Abubakar Shekau
was the son of poor farmers, became radicalised while attending
theological schools and took over Boko Haram in 2010.
The Nigerian military said, last September, that a man, posing as
Shekau in videos posted online, had, in fact, been killed after
fighting with troops in the far northeast.
The United States and other experts, however, questioned the
credibility of that claim, while Shekau denied it outright in a
video obtained by AFP last October
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