Boko Haram chief voices support for IS, claims deadly attacks in new video
The head of Nigeria’s Boko Haram radicals has vowed support for the Sunni Islamic State extremists in Iraq and Syria and other Islamist groups in a new video, according to AFP. The group also claimed responsibility for the deadly June bombings in Nigeria.
In a new 16-minute video given to AFP, the Boko Haram extremists’
chief, Abubakar Shekau, voiced support for the militants of the
Islamic State (IS) who are on a bloody rampage in Iraq and Syria.
Shekau also addressed prominent extremist groups Al-Qaeda and the
Taliban.
"May Allah protect you," he said, calling the leaders of
the groups his “brethren.”
In the video the leader said Boko Haram was responsible for the
June 25 bombing in Nigeria’s capital Abuja where at least 21
people were killed and over 50 others were injured when a bomb
went off in a shopping center.
"We were the ones who detonated the bomb in filthy
Abuja," Shekau said.
The Boko Haram leader also said the group was responsible for the
attack that occurred just hours before in the port city of Lagos.
"A bomb went off in Lagos. I ordered (the bomber) who went
and detonated it,” he said.
The country’s authorities previously explained that the blast
occurred due to a gas explosion with no casualties.
"You said it was a fire incident," he added. "Well,
if you hide it from people you can't hide it from Allah."
Shekau also mocked the popular social media campaign ‘Bring Back
Our Girls’, which brought international attention to the
kidnapping of more than 200 school girls from the Chibok
government secondary school by the Islamist radicals in April.
A social media campaign under the hashtag #Bringbackourgirls has
been supported worldwide by human rights groups such as Amnesty
International and UNICEF, as well as world leaders and
celebrities, including Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama.
Earlier, the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIS or ISIL)
militants made a mockery of Michelle Obama’s popular photo on
Twitter made in support of the campaign. The militants
photo-shopped the picture changing the slogan to
#bringbackourhumvee, following the capture of US-made Humvees and
tanks in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul in June.
As the ISIS jihadists moved further inland, on June 29 they
declared the captured territories from Iraq's Diyala province to
Syria's Aleppo a new Islamic State - a ‘caliphate.' Following the
establishment of what they claimed to be a legitimate state, IS
called on Al-Qaeda and other radical Islamists to pledge their allegiance.
The same idea of an Islamic state with strict Sharia law is
strongly promoted by Boko Haram. The group declared plans to
establish such a state on Nigerian territory, with a
multi-national and multi-confessional population of over 160
million. Massacres, kidnappings and raids by the infamous
group resulted in an estimated 10,000 deaths between 2002 and
2013 in the West African country.
