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Nigeria’s military have furnished details of how Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau died. Citing an “intelligence report”, Lt.-Col. Sagir Musa, spokesman of the military Joint Task Force (JTF) in the troubled North-East state of Borno, said Shekau was shot by security forces during a shoot-out when soldiers raided a Boko Haram base at Sambisa Forest on June 30.

“Shekau was mortally wounded in the encounter and was sneaked into Amitchide – a border community in Cameroon for treatment... It is greatly believed that Shekau might have died between 25 July to 3 August 2013,” the JTF spokesman said.

He dismissed the video of Shekau released on August 13 I which he claimed to be alive and in good health as being “dramatised by an imposter to hoodwink the sect members to continue with the terrorism.”

Shekau, who became leader of Boko Haram after its founder, Muhammad Yusuf, died in police custody in 2009, had been declared wanted by both the JTF and the United States Government, which had put a bounty of $7m on his head.

The news of his death comes six days after Nigeria’s Defence Headquarters announced that his second-in-command, Momodu Bama, and 17 others, had been killed in a shoot-out between Special Forces and the insurgents.

As reported on August 2 by News Express, quoting foreign news sources, a group of Boko Haram commanders had announced that Shekau had been shot and deposed in a palace coup, but there was no confirmation by the Nigerian military until today’s statement by Col. Musa.

JTF’s operations in the North-East are winding up today, as it hands over to a new Army Division created to continue the counter-insurgency operations stepped up after President Goodluck Jonathan declared an emergency in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa last May.

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