In its first video since the declaration of a state of emergency in three states of the troubled northern region, the Boko Haram Islamist sect has released a video in which it claimed to have recorded few losses while forcing the Military to retreat on many occasions.
“Since we started this ongoing war which they call state of emergency … in some instances soldiers who faced us turned and ran,” leader of the sect, Abubakar Shekau said in the video, dressed in a camouflage and brandishing an AK-47.
Claiming that the Military threw down their arms in flight, he urged like-minded Islamists in such countries as Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq to support its war towards enthroning an Islamic state in Nigeria, the only alternative to which is martyrdom.
“We call to us our brethren in these countries I mentioned,” he said. “Oh! Our brethren, come to us.”
In other parts of the video, he showed vehicles and weapons he claimed were seized from the Military, and also promised never to stop the kidnap of women and children who are relatives of its opposition in the war until arrested families of the sect are free.
Shekau’s claims are inconsistent with those of the Military, which have always portrayed the Joint Military Task Force (JTF) as decimating the fundamentalists.
On 20th May for instance, it claimed to have re-established control over five remote areas of the northeast where Islamist insurgents had held sway as well as the arrest of 120 suspected insurgents.
In its most recent press release at the weekend, the Military claimed to have arrested 25 terrorists and killed another three during operations at the weekend while it lost just a soldier.
“Troops of the special forces have intercepted messages sent to fleeing insurgents urging them not to give up but fight to the end,” the statement said.
“The attempt by some of them to heed the call was foiled during the weekend as they were trailed to some settlements and towns towards the border where they plan to regroup.”
