– Militants mock regional fightback –
Boko Haram released three new videos on YouTube, one of them a 28-minute speech from its leader Shekau in an undisclosed location flanked by eight masked fighters.
He dismissed the threat from regional forces, stating: “Your alliance will not achieve anything.”
Nigeria maintains that the involvement of troops from Chad and Cameroon is part of an existing agreement to fight the Islamists between countries in the Lake Chad region.
On Saturday, Nigeria and its neighbours – Chad, Niger, Cameroon and Benin – agreed to muster 8,700 troops, police and civilians for a wider, African Union-backed force against Boko Haram.
The United States estimates Shekau as having between 4,000 to 6,000 hardcore fighters at his disposal, and he mocked regional efforts to defeat them. READ: Nigeria delays elections as Boko Haram conflict spirals.
“You send 7,000 troops? Why don’t you send seven million?” he said in Arabic.
“By Allah, it is small. We can seize them one by one.”
Shekau also directly threatened Chad’s President Idriss Deby, whose forces have attacked Boko Haram in the northeast Nigerian towns of Gamboru and Malam Fatori in recent days.
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