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Abubakar Shekau, the head of the Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram, had killed himself, rival Islamist militants said in an audiotape.
According to recordings received by news agencies from Boko Haram on Sunday, the group’s leader Abubakar Shekau killed himself in a confrontation against rival jihadist fighters from the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), two weeks after reports emerged that he had died.
The Ethiopian government has defiantly brushed aside international calls for a ceasefire in the northern province of Tigray, saying its forces are close to “finalising operations” and will soon eliminate all armed opposition.
In recent days the US, United Nations, UK and many European states have called for a pause in hostilities to allow humanitarian organisations to reach millions of people who observers say face famine.
At least 50 people have been killed in two overnight attacks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s deeply troubled east, a military official and monitors said.
A local official blamed the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), which has been linked to the ISIL (ISIS) group. Military spokesman Jules Ngongo told the dpa news agency that ADF fighters attacked the villages of Boga and Tchabi in the eastern Ituri region.
An armed gang have abducted as many as 150 students from an Islamic school in the north-central Nigerian state of Niger with one person shot dead.
Armed groups carrying out kidnapping for ransom have been blamed for raids on schools and universities in northern Nigeria in recent months, abducting more than 700 students since December.
The leader of Mali’s 2020 coup, Col. Assimi Goita, has declared himself the country’s President, hours after the release of Prime Minister Moctar Ouane and President Bah Ndaw from custody.
President Bah N’Daw and Prime Minister Moctar Ouane were arrested Monday, along with other government leaders, hours after naming a new Cabinet that did not include two major former junta leaders.
An additional 20 interim officials had been “kidnapped” by forces loyal to the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front, or TPLF, which ruled the region until it was toppled by an offensive ordered by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in November. A further four have been “wounded and hospitalized,” said the statement issued on Twitter.
Abiy declared victory four weeks after the offensive began and replaced the TPLF’s regional administration with an interim one headed by officials appointed by the federal government based in Addis Ababa. But six months on, fighting continues in Tigray as pro-TPLF fighters wage an insurgent campaign in the region’s countryside.
Military officers in Mali arrested the president, prime minister and defence minister of the country’s interim government on Monday after a cabinet reshuffle, multiple diplomatic and government sources told Reuters.
President Bah Ndaw, Prime Minister Moctar Ouane and defence minister Souleymane Doucoure were all taken to a military base in Kati outside the capital Bamako, the sources said.