Nigeria Says It Kills Top Boko Haram Militants

A Nigerian army spokesman said its country’s air force had killed some senior Boko Haram militants and believed it had fatally wounded the group’s leader in a raid on the heartland of the Islamists in the northeast of the country. “Their leader, so called ‘Abubakar Shekau’, is believed to be fatally wounded on his shoulders,” the statement released on Tuesday from army spokesman Colonel Sani Kukasheka Usman said. Analysts urged caution as the military had reported his death previously, only to have a man purporting to be Shekau reappear later on video. Boko Haram is a radical Islamic group that is fighting to take over Nigeria and establish an Islamic caliphate there and has links with Islamic State. The CIA believes it has an estimated 9000 fighters, and is most famous for abducting more than 200 schoolgirls in 2014, many of whom are still in captivity.