Issuing threats: A video released by Boko Haram shows a man claiming to be the group's leader Abubakar Shekau. Issuing threats: A video released by Boko Haram shows a man claiming to be the group's leader Abubakar Shekau. Photo: AFP
More than 130 Boko Haram Islamist fighters have surrendered to Nigerian forces, and a man posing as the group's leader in numerous videos has been killed in clashes, the military said.
The army has stepped up military operations against Boko Haram in the remote north-east since the rebels seized several small towns and declared the area they control a "Muslim territory".
The group, which has killed thousands in five years of hit-and-run attacks on military installations and civilians has grown increasingly ambitious in the past two months and started trying to take and hold ground in Africa's largest oil producer.
The Nigerian army said 135 Boko Haram fighters had handed their weapons to troops on Tuesday in the north-east town of Biu, near the epicentre of Boko Haram's campaign to carve out an Islamist state.
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"In the course of those encounters, one Mohammed Bashir, who has been acting or posing on videos as the deceased Abubakar Shekau ... known as leader of the group, died," Defence spokesman Major-General Chris Olukolade said on Wednesday.
Throughout the militants' insurgency, a man claiming to be the Islamists' leader, Abubakar Shekau, has periodically released videos of himself issuing threats and taunting the authorities.
One showed him claiming responsibility for the April abduction of 200 schoolgirls from the remote village of Chibok, which sparked an international outcry. The schoolgirls remain in captivity.
Shekau took over leadership of the movement after its founder Mohammed Yusuf died in police custody in 2009.
Nigeria's military in August 2013 said Shekau may have died of gunshot wounds some weeks after a clash with soldiers between July 25 and August 4 that year. After that, the man appearing in videos appeared to look different, with a rounder, less narrow face and a wider nose.
Major-General Olukolade said the actual identity of Boko Haram's leader was not relevant. The name "Shekau" had become a "brand name for the terrorists", he said.
Analysts said earlier this week that they were sceptical about claims that he had been killed. Ryan Cummings, chief Africa analyst at Red24 risk consultants in South Africa, said he thought it unlikely that Boko Haram's commander would be in the thick of battle.
But Jacob Zenn, from the Jamestown Foundation think-tank in the US, said the death of a body double in Konduga was plausible.
"It's important to note, however, that Shekau may have had 'doubles' who appeared in some videos. And the army has a record of being incorrect about claims of Shekau's death," he said