Boko Haram innovator is lifeless, say rival militants
The first choice of the Nigerian militant group Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, has killed himself, rival Islamist militants said within an audio recording.
In audio tracks obtained by news agencies, the Islamic Status West Africa Province (Iswap) said Shekau died detonating explosives on himself after a battle between your two groups.
Shekau was first reported dead last month and has been reported killed before.
Neither Boko Haram nor the Nigerian federal government have confirmed his loss of life.
In the undated audio recording, a voice regarded as that of Iswap innovator Abu Musab al-Barnawi said Shekau "killed himself quickly by detonating an explosive".
Iswap fighters hunted down the warlord and offered him the opportunity to repent and join them, al-Barnawi said.
"Shekau preferred to be humiliated on the afterlife than getting humiliated on the planet," he said.
When information of Shekau's death found in a clash circulated previous month, the Nigerian army said it could investigate.
Army spokesman Brig Gen Mohammed Yerima told the BBC at that time the army was looking at what happened, but that it could not issue a declaration until it got definitive evidence.
One journalist with close links to security agencies said that Shekau died when Iswap attacked Boko Haram positions in the Sambisa forest, north-east Nigeria.
He has been reported dead numerous times before, and then resurface.
After taking the reins of Boko Haram following its founder died in police custody in '09 2009, Shekau led its transformation from an underground sect to a deadly insurgency which has swept north-east Nigeria.
Under Shekau, Boko Haram staged bombings, kidnappings and prison breaks over the location. And from 2014, it started out overrunning towns in a bid to develop an Islamic State under Sharia law.
Thought to be in his early on- to mid-40s, Shekau backed a bloody jihadist plan in propaganda videos that drew comparisons to Osama Bin Laden.
"I enjoy killing... just how I enjoy slaughtering chickens and rams," he said in one 2012 video.
Since he took fee, more than 30,000 people have already been killed and over two million displaced from their homes.
The group gained global attention following its 2014 kidnapping of a huge selection of girls from a school in Chibok, in Borno state, sparking the #BringBackOurGirls movement. Most of them are still missing.
Immediately after, the US declared Shekau a good "global terrorist" and placed a $7 million (£4.9m) bounty on his brain.
Shekau's agenda was thus radical that he was rejected by Islamic Status, which split from Boko Haram to create Iswap in 2016.
