The
leader of Nigeria's Boko Haram Islamists said his group has scored
several victories against the military during an ongoing offensive while
themselves sustaining little damage, in a video seen by AFP on Tuesday.
"Since we started this ongoing war
which they call state of emergency ... in some instances soldiers who
faced us turned and ran," Abubakar Shekau said in the hour-long video.
He claimed Nigerian forces "threw down their arms in flight."
He called on like-minded Islamists in
countries including Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq to join the fight to
create an Islamic state in Nigeria.
"We call to us our brethren in these
countries I mentioned. Oh! Our brethren, come to us," he said in the
video, which alternates between Arabic and the Hausa language spoken
across northern Nigeria.
Nigeria launched an offensive against
Boko Haram on May 15, after President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state
of emergency in the country's northeast, the Islamist insurgents'
stronghold.
The video was delivered to AFP through
an intermediary in a manner similar to previous Boko Haram messages. The
images of Shekau in the vieo are consistent with those previously
released.
The Boko Haram leader was designated a global terrorist by the United states last year.
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