Nigeria’s air force said it had killed a number of senior Boko Haram fighters and possibly their overall leader in a briefing and statement on Tuesday (August 23).
Government planes attacked the Islamist group inside the Sambisa forest in its northeast heartland on Friday (August 19), the air force said, adding that it had only just confirmed details of the impact of the raid.
In a briefing to air force personnel Nigeria’s Chief of Air Staff Sadiq Abubakar said some 300 Boko Haram militants had been killed.
In a later statement, military spokesman Colonel Sani Kukasheka Usman said: “Their leader, so called ‘Abubakar Shekau’, is believed to be fatally wounded on his shoulders.” Usman did not give details on the source of the information.
The Obama administration has paid close attention to the fight against the militant group which has declared allegiance to Islamic State and destabilised a whole region by attacking Nigeria’s neighbours.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was visiting Nigeria on Tuesday, meeting Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari
The reported air raid on the militants did not come up in their meeting in Abuja, a senior State Department official said. “It didn’t come up,” the official said in an interview, “I don’t think (Buhari) has enough information and we didn’t have enough information to raise it.”
Nigeria has been pushing the United States to sell it aircraft to take on Boko Haram – a group that emerged in northeast Borno region seven years ago. The militants have killed an estimated 15,000 people in their fight to set up an Islamist state.
Under Nigeria’s last president, Goodluck Jonathan, the United States had blocked arms sales and ended training of Nigerian troops partly over human rights concerns such as treatment of captured insurgents.
But the new administration argues its human rights record has improved significantly enough to lift the blockade.
The senior State Department official said there was now a recognition by the Nigerian military of the need to pay attention to human rights. “While they are not perfect, they are conscious” of the issue, the official added.
There was no immediate reaction from Boko Haram, which communicates with the media only by videos. The military has reported the death of Boko Haram’s Shekau in the past, only to have a man purporting to be him appear later, apparently unharmed, making video statements.
There have been recent signs of rifts between at least parts of Boko Haram and Islamic State. The global militant organisation announced a new leader for what it described as its West African operations this month – an account that Abubakar Shekau appeared to contradict in a later video message.
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2016