The leader of the Boko Haram group is believed to be fatally wounded in an air strike carried out by the Nigerian military in the country's northeast, according to media reports citing a senior official sources.
The report said a number of fighters were targeted last week in the Sambisa forest near Gambaru in Borno state, near the border with Cameroon.
"Their leader, so called 'Abubakar Shekau', is believed to be fatally wounded on his shoulders," the statement released on Tuesday from army spokesman Colonel Sani Kukasheka Usman added.
The military has reported Shekau's death in the past, only to have a man purporting to be him appear later, apparently unharmed, making video statements.
There was no immediate reaction from the group.
Boko Haram pledged its allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group, also known as ISIS, last year but the groups have apparently split, with ISIL naming Abu Musab al-Barnawi three weeks ago as the group's leader for West Africa in a two-page interview in its weekly magazine, Al Naba.
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