Nigeria’s air force said it had killed some senior Boko Haram militants and possibly fatally wounded their leader in a raid on the militants’ northeast heartland.
Government planes attacked the fighters in the village of Taye inside the Sambisa forest in Borno State on Friday night, the air force said, adding it had only just confirmed details of the raid, Reuters reported.
“Their leader, the so-called ‘Abubakar Shekau’, is believed to be fatally wounded on his shoulders,” the statement by army spokesman, Colonel Sani Kukasheka Usman, added.
The military has reported Shekau’s death in the past, only to have a man purporting to be him appear later, apparently unharmed, making video statements. There was no immediate reaction from the group.
