The new Boko Haram leader, Abu Masab Al-Barnawi, says Christians in Nigeria will be the new target of the sect’s attacks, vowing that the sect will kill all Christians and “blow up every church that we are able to reach.”
Al-Barnawi was the spokesman for the fundamentalist sect until August 3 when he was declared its new leader to replace Abubakar Shekau.
In an interview he granted Al-Naba Newspaper, which was translated by SITE Intelligence Group, Al-Barnawi was reported as describing Boko Haram’s activities in Nigeria as a war fought by Muslims against “apostates” and “crusaders.”
He said the group was aggrieved that the West had been trying to Christianise Africa, saying the West was spreading Christianity to the African region and charities were assisting them in doing that.
He also claimed that victims of insurgency were being kept in the Internally Displaced Persons’ camp, fed and sheltered for the purpose of turning their children to Christians.
He, however, said the group would retaliate.
He said, “They (West) strongly seek to Christianise the society…They exploit the condition of those who are displaced under the raging war, providing them with food and shelter and then Christianising their children.”
Al-Barnawi vowed that Boko Haram fighters would retaliate by “booby-trapping and blowing up every church that we are able to reach and kill all those (Christians) who we find from the citizens of the cross.”
The new Boko Haram leader said the sect “remained a force to be reckoned with,” boasting that it had enlisted new recruits.
Meanwhile, the disputed leader of Boko Haram has said he is still in charge of Nigeria’s militant Islamist group despite a statement by so-called Islamic State that he had been replaced.
Abubakar Shekau denounced the IS declaration that Abu Musab al-Barnawi was now leader.
Shekau accused al-Barnawi of trying to stage a coup against him.
Boko Haram is fighting to overthrow Nigeria’s government and establish an Islamic State in the north.
In the last 18 months it has lost most of the territory it had controlled after being pushed back by an offensive by the forces of Nigeria and its neighbours.
Shekau was last heard from in an audio message last August, saying he was alive and had not been replaced – an IS video released in April said the same.
In a 10-minute audio message in both Arabic and Hausa, Shekau appeared to distance Boko Haram from IS, but still called its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi “caliph”.
He said that some in Boko Haram had stopped him communicating with al-Baghdadi, reports the BBC.
“I was asked to send my ideology in writing to the caliph but it was manipulated by some people in order to achieve their own selfish interests,” he added, describing a coup attempt against him.
He said he had sent eight different letters to IS leaders but they did not act on them, only to hear the news that he had been replaced.
He then described al-Barnawi and his followers as polytheist.
