Just a week after its leader Abubakar Shekau hinted at ending Boko Haram’s reign of terror in northeastern Nigeria in a video, the group released a new video Friday denying any suggestion it might surrender.

“You should know that there is no truce, there is no negotiations, there is no surrender,” an unidentified masked man in camouflage said in a prepared script in Hausa, the dominant language in the north, in the video posted on YouTube.

in Friday’s message, Boko Haram maintained it was a potent fighting force, with men holding AK-47s posing in front of Toyota Hilux pick-up trucks and a lorry mounted with a military cannon.

“You should know that there is no truce, there is no negotiations, there is no surrender,” an unidentified masked man in camouflage said in a prepared script in Hausa, the dominant language in the north, in the video posted on YouTube.

“This war between us will not stop.”

The video, of markedly better quality than Shekau’s and including Arabic subtitles, featured nine masked Boko Haram fighters standing on sandy ground in an undisclosed desert location.

It is unclear if the masked people in the video include the Boko Haram leader.

Shekau was still the head of the “West African wing”, said the masked speaker, likening Boko Haram to the Islamist insurgencies in Iraq, Libya and Syria.

Credit: guardian