Exposé: An Open Letter to Abubakar Shekau

(4 AUGUST 2016) [Trans.: Abdulbasit Kassim] Available at: https://soundcloud.com/saharareporters/2016-08-04-audio-00000003-1 This video is a scathing attack upon Shekau and the direction in which he has led Boko Haram by Mamman Nur, one of the oldest veterans of the movement (see text 18). From summer 2015 through spring 2016 Boko Haram carried out a long string of suicide attacks, usually using young female suicide attackers, against mosques, market places, and refugee centers throughout the territories in northeastern Nigeria and northern Cameroon that it had controlled the previous year. Most probably, unless this was purely nihilistic violence, Shekau viewed these attacks as punishment for apostasy on the part of Boko Haram’s former subjects. Those numerous attacks against refugee centers are particularly indicative, as most of the people living in them are originally from towns and villages that were controlled by Boko Haram and are still too dangerous to return to. Nur attacks Shekau’s strategy in terms that are strongly reminiscent of al-Zawahiri’s attack upon al-Zarqawi in 2005...