Boko Haram issues new video in which Shekau appears claiming he is still alive

BOKO Haram has released a new 36-minute Youtube video in which its leader Sheikh Abubakar Shekau appears denying that he was killed by the Nigerian Army in Borno State earlier this month. After a fierce battle between the Nigerian Army and Boko Haram in Kodunga in Borno State on September 17, military authorities said they had killed Shekau. Pictures were released of a man resembling him and it was reported that over 200 terrorists were also killed and a lot of their equipment, including a tank, armoured personnel carriers, surface-to-air missiles, rocket launchers, multi-purpose machine guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition were seized. However, earlier today, Sheikh Shekau appeared to be the one speaking in a video in which he dismissed the talk of his death as government propaganda. He went on to add that Boko Haram has implemented strict Islamic law in the towns it has captured . Sheikh Shekau said: "Here I am, alive. I will only die the day Allah takes my breath." Security analysts and the US had questioned the credibility of the military's claim that Shekau was dead and this new video will be thoroughly examined to see if it is indeed him in it. In the video, Shekau appears in combat fatigues and black rubber boots, standing on the back of a pick-up truck and firing an anti-aircraft gun into the air. Standing in front of three camouflaged vans and flanked by four heavily armed, masked fighters, he then speaks for 16 minutes in Arabic and Hausa. There was no indication of where or when the video was shot but Shekau appeared heavily bearded in it, as he did in previous clips. "Nothing will kill me until my days are over, I'm still alive. Some people asked you if Shekau has two souls, no, I have one soul, by Allah. "I'm the Islamic student whose seminary you burnt. I'm not dead," Shekau added. There have been two previous claims by Nigeria's security forces that Shekau was dead, once in 2009 during unrest in Maiduguri and again in 2013. Following each previous claim Boko Haram has issued denials in video messages. Elsewhere in the new video, Boko Haram also claimed to have shot down a Nigerian Air Force jet that went missing nearly three weeks ago. However, air force spokesman Air Commodore Dele Alonge said the jet was missing and claims it had been shot down were just propaganda.