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ABUJA – Nigeria’s military claimed yesterday to have seriously injured Boko Haram’s elusive leader Abubakar Shekau and killed other commanders in an air strike on the Islamist group’s forest stronghold. Nigeria has repeatedly claimed to have killed Shekau in previous raids only for him to appear shortly afterwards in videos. Shekau was “fatally wounded in the shoulder” during Friday’s raids, said army spokesman Sani Usman in a statement, without giving further details. Usman also said three Boko Haram commanders – Abubakar Mubi, Malam Nuhu and Malam Hamman – were confirmed dead with several others wounded.

The claim came as US Secretary of State John Kerry visited Nigeria for talks likely to focus on the fight against Boko Haram, which launched an uprising in 2009.Nigerian forces, with the support of regional troops, have recently recaptured swathes of territory lost to the jihadists. The mysterious Shekau’s fate has been the subject of speculation recently amid claims he had been replaced by Sheikh Abu Musab al-Barnawi, the group’s former spokesman.

Barnawi’s appointment was contained in a magazine issued by the Islamic State group, to which Boko Haram pledged allegiance in March last year. But only a week later, the shadowy Shekau surfaced in a video posted on social media, ridiculing suggestions of his death and looking more composed and energetic than in previous appearances. Boko Haram, which seeks to impose a strict Islamic law in Nigeria’s mainly-Muslim north, has killed some 20,000 people and forced at least 2.6 million others to flee their homes since 2009.

Meanwhile, a man identified as the “spiritual leader” of Boko Haram in Nigeria”s northwestern state of Kano has been arrested, together with other insurgents plotting to carry out attacks in the country, security authorities said Monday. The man, whose name was given as Mudasiru Jibrin, was arrested on July 17 at a Boko Haram detention centre uncovered by the secret police operatives in Kano.

Preliminary investigations had proved that Jibrin hatched the plan of shooting some high school students near Potiskum city of Nigeria’s northeastern state of Yobe three years ago, the national Department of Security Services said in a statement.

Prior to the Boko Haram leader’s arrest, the secret police had on July 8 arrested a notorious Boko Haram fighter and three of his accomplices while perfecting arrangements for major coordinated attacks on selected locations in the northwestern Kaduna state, the statement added. Boko Haram has been blamed for some 20,000 deaths and displacing of more than 2.6 million people in Nigeria since 2009. – AFP/Xinhua