Boko Haram, the extremist
Islamic group In Nigeria, has published a video that shows charred
plane wreckage and the beheading of a man identified as a pilot of a
missing Nigerian Air Force jet, bolstering the group's claims that it
shot down a fighter plane.
The video also allegedly
features Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau, a man Nigeria's military
twice has claimed to kill — first in 2009 and again last year. Two weeks
ago the military said they had killed a Shekau lookalike who had posed
in the group's videos.
"Here I am, alive, and I
will remain alive until the day Allah takes away my breath," the man
says in the Hausa language. "Even if you kill me ... it will not stop us
imposing Islamic rule ... We are still in our Islamic state, reigning
and teaching the Quran."
The United States still has a $7 million bounty on Shekau's head.
The video was made
available to The Associated Press through the same channels used
previously and seems to show the same man. Nigeria's Defense
Headquarters suggested in a blog that the insurgents had manipulated
images and cloned "another Shekau."
In the video, the man
identified as Shekau says Boko Haram is implementing strict Shariah law
in areas of northeast Nigeria under its control. Examples are shown,
including the stoning death of a man apparently accused of adultery; the
amputation of the hand of a young man accused of theft; the lashings of
a man and what appears to be a girl covered in a hijab.
The video ends with a
show of burnt-out plane parts in rugged bush. Two pilots and an Alpha
jet have been missing since Sept. 11 when it left the northeastern town
of Yola on a bombing mission against Boko Haram.
The video shows a
kneeling man in a camouflage vest with his right hand in a sling, with a
fighter hovering over him with an ax, which is later used in the
beheading.
Speaking in English, the
victim identifies himself as a wing commander in the Nigerian Air Force
and says he was undertaking a mission in Kauri area of northeast Borno
state.
"We were shot down and our aircraft crashed," he says. "To this day I don't know the whereabouts of my second pilot."
The insurgents have stolen military hardware from Nigerian forces, probably including anti-aircraft weapons.
- Source: http://abcnews.go.com
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