SHEKAU APPEARS IN NEW VIDEO

. We’re studying clip – Army

The leader of the Jama’atu Ahlis Sunnah Lid Da’awati Wal Jihad, also known as Boko Haram, has resurfaced and claimed responsibility for recent attacks that left more than a hundred people dead in Borno State.
Abubakar Shekau, who military authorities said in August might have been killed, released a video yesterday in which he said: “The world should know that by the grace of Allah I am alive and will only dieat the appointed time.”
The video was sent out through intermediaries who had previously passed on similar messages by the sect leader.
“Those underrating my capacity should have a re-think because the war we are waging will consume all of you,” Shekau said in his usual boastful style.
He said the announcement of his possible death by the defunct Joint Task Force in Maiduguri was misleading and might have been aimed at provoking him to speak.

But he said he deliberately kept quiet until now.
“I deliberately kept quiet all this while, laughing at Nigerian authorities who misled the world that I am dead. I wish they would stop bothering themselves because I cannot be stopped,” he said.
In the video, Shekau is seen dressed in military fatigue, sitting on a rug and surrounded by lieutenants who wielded sophisticated guns.
He spoke in Arabic, Hausa, English as well as his native Kanuri language.
Shekau taunted President Goodluck Jonathan and his counterparts, U.S.’s Barack Obama and France’s Francois Hollande, saying they would be sad to hear he is still alive.
“The claim that I was injured in Sambisa and taken to Amichide in Cameroon for treatment is not true. By Allah, I was never in Cameroon. Only Allah knows my whereabouts because I only give orders and I will never tell anyone where I am,” he said.
On August 19, Lt-Col Sagir Musa, then-spokesman for JTF and now for the newly-created 7 Division of the Nigerian Army, issued a statement saying Shekau might have died of gunshots wounds received in an encounter with troops in Sambisa Forest on June 30.
“Shekau was mortally wounded in the encounter and was sneaked into Amitchide-a border community in Cameroon for treatment which he never recovered,” the statement said.
In reference to an earlier video of Shekau released on August 12, the JTF said the man in that clip was an impostor.
There had been no word from the sect leader since then, even though attacks blamed on Boko Haram heightened in villages and towns of Borno State.
When contacted yesterday, Army spokesman Brigadier General Ibrahim Attahiru said the Army will try to establish the authenticity of the clip.
In his latest video, Shekau made references to the attacks in Benisheik penultimate Tuesday, saying his sect was responsible and had killed more than 200 people.
“We are responsible for the offensive in Monguno where hundreds of soldiers and civilian JTF were killed,” he said.
“After killing many of them in Monguno and Benisheik, we snatched their armoured carriers and Hilux vans and then hoisted Islamic flags on them. We now move freely with them.
“We are also responsible for the attacks in Yiza in Gwoza local government area of Borno and the one in Gombi in Adamawa State.  Our pride lies in the Almighty and we are not afraid of death. We would continue fighting until the last of our breath.”
He denied claims by the military of recording victories on his group.
“They claimed they have killed our brethren in various places. It is a lie,” he said.
“Whether I am alive or dead, the ideology will subsist. Some people say our clamour with disappear with the demise of Mohammed Yusuf but here we are, gaining ground every day. Some people are saying they wished our former leader Mohammed Yusuf were alive, that I am a radical fellow.
“What they failed to understand is that Islam is the religion of Allah that does not depend on the influence of any mortal.”
He added: “Part of the propaganda of the military is that we have been crushed, that there only a few of us left in the city, not more that 30 of us, that the security forces have killed all of us in the forest and that they carried out aerial chemical spray which made us wither and die. And that those of us who try to flee the forest are arrested at checkpoints mounted at the edge of the forest,” he said.
“You have been showing huge caches of weapons on the internet claiming you seized them from us. Allah knows it is not true. To gladden the minds of our brethren, I declare that not a penny was taken from us, as far as is known.
“We believe it is a ploy to prompt us to deny your claim and display our weapons for you to see. You want us to show you our weapon types, right? We will not. You will see nothing but this (laughter) and if you want to see it you come over, and I will break open your head!”
Shekau also spoke on the $7 million bounty on his head, and the claims by the Federal Government’s dialogue committee of having reached out to him through intermediaries.
“The bounty ($7 million) on my head placed by the United States is worthless and the so-called dialogue with (Kabiru) Turaki-led committee with my group is another bunch of lies,” he said.
“After this video, I am sure they would come with another contraption about my identity in order to hide their failures.”