Boko Haram Leader,Shekau Flees Nigeria As Military Deploys Special Forces

Military deploys special forces to track fleeing Boko Haram leader

■ Drops Thuraya phone line to block traces

■ We’ll hunt him down – Army

As the military deploys its special force units to track the fleeing lead­er of the Boko Haram sect, Abuba­kar Shekau, there are strong indi­cations that the terror kingpin may have fled Nigeria through the help of Islamic State (ISIS) groups operating in East and North Africa.

Saturday Sun gathered that with the recent loss of his group’s caliphate headquarters, Gwoza to the Nigerian troops and the invasion of Sambisa forest by a detachment of the na­tion’s special force units deployed from their base in Makurdi, Benue State, the Boko Haram leader saw his capture as imminent.


According to dependable military intelli­gence sources, Shekau had to send emissaries to ISIS affiliates with strongholds in East and North Africa to pave the way for his escape to their region from where he intends to coordi­nate his group’s activities or ultimately relocate to ISIS headquarters in the Middle East.

One of the sources revealed that “having discovered that he was being tracked through his Thuraya satellite phone, Shekau recently dropped the line and handset totally to evade capture. But the last satellite image of him and other intelligence pieced together by forces on the battle frontline show his desperation to es­cape from the country to parts of East Africa or North Africa where ISIS is having some foot­holds.”

The source, a red neck military chief further told Saturday Sun that “as part of moves being made by Shekau, he now relocates with few­er guards and limited number of lieutenants knowing his movement schedule. This is to frustrate intelligence gathering efforts by se­curity forces and avoid attracting the focus of satellite image capturing technology deployed by some foreign super powers and shared with the Nigerian security forces.”

It was gathered that as part of his bid to es­cape the heat of ongoing military operations in the Northeast Nigeria, Shekau has in the last few weeks changed his look and physical ap­pearance dramatically. “A recent intelligence from one of our foreign partners shows the Boko Haram leader clean shaven which total­ly alters his look. That heightens our curiosity about his motive, before we got other evidence that pointed to the fact that he was trying to cross the border”, the source added.

The militant group had on March 7 pledged allegiance to the leadership of ISIS in Iraq and Syria. The pledge, which was made by Shekau, who addressed himself as the Imam of Ja­maátu Ahlus Sunnah Lidda’awati Wal Jihad (Boko Haram) and was addressed to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi al-Husseini al-Qurashi, the lead­er of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) or Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

“From your brother in Allah, Abu Mohamed Abu Bakr bin Mohammed Shekau, the Imam of Jamaátu Ahlus Sunnah Lidda Awaati Wal Jihad to the Caliph of Muslims Abubakar Abu Bakr Ibrahim ibn Awad ibn Ibrahim al-Husseini al-Qurashi.

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