Boko Haram Now Has A New Face For Their Misguided Struggle, Shekau Missing In New Video

Nigeria’s Boko Haram now has a new face for their misguided struggle to establish an Islamic Republic over the country.

In a new video, just like the last one released in June, the well known leader of the group, Abubakar Shekau was again conspicuously missing, further confirming speculations that he is either seriously wounded or dead.

The new eight-minute video, shows an unidentified young man, who speaks in the name of the Islamic State in West Africa calling on people to be patient: “We are still present everywhere we had been before.”

The man speaks in the regional Hausa language, with subtitles in Arabic and English.

The video shows the militants attacking a security checkpoint, seizing weapons, and slitting the throat of a man dressed in a police uniform.

BBC News which has seen the video says it is gruesome. It however describes its production as sleek and that this suggests that it was produced with the help of IS-allied propaganda units.

Mr Shekau became Boko Haram leader following the killing of the group’s founder, Muhammed Yusuf  in police custody in 2009. Previous reports about his death proved to be untrue.

He sparked global outrage when Boko Haram abducted more than 200 girls from a boarding school in Chibok town in Borno state in April 2014.

The US government has offered a reward of up to $7m (£4.6m) for information about his location.