B’Haram didn’t behead our pilot –Military

The Nigerian Air Force, NAF, yesterday, dismissed the claim of the beheading of its pilot by Boko Haram terrorists as a cheap and senseless propaganda intended to cover up the killing of the Abubakar Shekau's impostor, Mohammed Bashir, by the Nigerian troops.

Speaking through its Director of Public Relations and Information, DOPRI, Air Commodore Dele Alonge, NAF told our correspondent in Abuja that the claim in the said new video was not only false, but also very weak such that anyone who took a closer view of it with a good sense of analysis, would surely have every cause to doubt them.

A new Boko Haram video showed the beheading of a man who was identified as the pilot of a missing Nigerian Air Force jet and burnt out parts of a plane. It also allegedly featured Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, a man Nigeria's military insists that had been killed.

Two weeks ago, the military said it had killed in battle an impostor of Abubakar Shekau, who had posed in the sect's videos.

The video was made available to The Associated Press through the same channels used previously and seems to show the same man claiming to be Shekau.

In the latest video, he said they were prosecuting in accordance with Shariah law in areas under their control. Examples of punishments are shown, including the stoning to death of a man apparently accused of adultery; the amputation of the hand of a young man accused of theft; the flogging of a man and what appears to be a girl covered in the hijab.