Just a week after its leader Abubakar Shekau hinted at ending Boko Haram’s reign of terror in northeastern Nigeria in a video, the group released a new video Friday denying any suggestion it might surrender.
“You should know that there is no truce, there is no negotiations, there is no surrender,” an unidentified masked man in camouflage said in a prepared script in Hausa, the dominant language in the north, in the video posted on YouTube.
In a video devoid of his usual confidence talk and defiant bluster, Shekau who, though rejected the rumours of his death, signalled that his time as chief of the jihadist group may be coming to an end.
“This is a message of greeting and joy for you to see my face,” said Shekau in a video released just over a week ago.
“This is my desire: that whoever sees this will hear nothing but greetings between me and you. Only Allah knows the rest, as you believed (and) as you submitted. For me the end has come.
“This is only the message I want to send to you for you to understand that this is certainly I. This is why I did this.
If the video indeed depicts Shekau, he appears thin and listless, delivering his message without his trademark fiery rhetoric.
It prompted speculation from the army that the terror group was on the verge of collapse in the face of a sustained military counter-insurgency.
However, in Friday’s message, Boko Haram maintained it was a potent fighting force, with men holding AK-47s posing in front of Toyota Hilux pick-up trucks and a lorry mounted with a military cannon.
“You should know that there is no truce, there is no negotiations, there is no surrender,” an unidentified masked man in camouflage said in a prepared script in Hausa, the dominant language in the north, in the video posted on YouTube.
“This war between us will not stop.”
The video, of markedly better quality than Shekau’s and including Arabic subtitles, featured nine masked Boko Haram fighters standing on sandy ground in an undisclosed desert location.
It is unclear if the masked people in the video include the Boko Haram leader.
Shekau was still the head of the “West African wing”, said the masked speaker, likening Boko Haram to the Islamist insurgencies in Iraq, Libya and Syria.
In March 2015, Boko Haram pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, another deadly terror organisation.
But there were few signs that Boko Haram — now styled as Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP) — has drawn benefits from the partnership.
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