ABUJA, (Reuters) – The leader of Nigeria’s Islamist group Boko Haram said his fighters were now ruling the captured northeastern town of Gwoza “by Islamic law”, in the first video to state a territorial claim in more than five years of violent insurrection.
The Nigerian military denied Boko Haram had taken control of the town during fighting over the past week, although security sources and some witnesses said police and military there had been pushed out.
Abubakar Shekau’s forces have killed thousands since launching an uprising in 2009, and are seen as the biggest security threat to the continent’s leading energy producer.
The militant leader’s often rambling videoed speeches have become a regular feature of his bid to project himself as public enemy number one in Africa’s biggest economy.
In the latest video released late on Sunday, the militant who says he is fighting to create an Islamic state in religiously-mixed Nigeria, said his forces had taken control of the hilly border town of Gwoza, near the frontier with Cameroon.