{"id":28919,"date":"2016-09-26T02:20:00","date_gmt":"2016-09-26T02:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/boko-haram-s-shekau-says-he-is-in-good-health\/"},"modified":"2016-09-26T02:19:54","modified_gmt":"2016-09-26T02:19:54","slug":"boko-haram-s-shekau-says-he-is-in-good-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/boko-haram-s-shekau-says-he-is-in-good-health\/","title":{"rendered":"Boko Haram&#8217;s Shekau says he is &#8216;in good health&#8217; following claim of his death"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{The disputed leader of Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram has released a video message denying a claim by the military that he was killed or badly wounded in an air strike last month.}<\/p>\n<p>Abubakar Shekau appeared healthy in the video in which he spoke in Arabic, Hausa and the Kanuri language.<\/p>\n<p>It is not clear when it was recorded.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this month, the Islamic State (IS) group &#8211; to which Boko Haram has pledged allegiance &#8211; announced that Shekau was being replaced as leader.<\/p>\n<p>IS said he had been replaced by the lesser-known Abu Musab Albarnawi, but Shekau said he was still in charge.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Oh tyrants, I&#8217;m in a happy state, in good health and in safety,&#8221; Shekau said in the 40-minute video posted to YouTube.<\/p>\n<p>In August the Nigerian army said that Shekau had been seriously wounded in the shoulder in an air raid in which several commanders were killed.<\/p>\n<p>The military has yet to comment on the latest video.<\/p>\n<p>A military campaign launched in 2014 has seen Nigerian troops reclaim large tracts of territory in the northeast of the country from the Islamist group.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-15286 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_91372132_mediaitem91372131.jpg\" alt=\"Shekau, seen here in a video last year, said he was in a &quot;happy state&quot;\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{The disputed leader of Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram has released a video message denying a claim by the military that he was killed or badly wounded in an air strike last month.} Abubakar Shekau appeared healthy in the video in which he spoke in Arabic, Hausa and the Kanuri language. It is not clear [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-28919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28919\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28919"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=28919"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=28919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}