Cameroon claims Boko Haram leader Shekau killed

YAOUNDE , Cameroon, Sept. 22 (UPI) -- Abubakar Shekau, leader of the Boko Haram militant movement in western Africa, has been killed, the Cameroon army claims.

The army said Sunday Shekau died in an aerial bombardment near the Nigerian border shared with Cameroon. It also provided a photograph of a person who resembled him.

Shekau is the leader of a movement calling for an Islamic caliphate in Nigeria and the eradication of Western learning. He appeared in a video, earlier this year, with 200 schoolgirls captured by Boko Haram. He has also been declared dead a number of times, most recently last week when the Nigerian military claimed it killed him, 70 miles away from where the Cameroon army claimed he was killed.

Nigerian security agencies are investigating the latest reported death of Shekau. A security official said an unidentified Boko Haram leader was captured after a gun battle near Konduga, in Nigeria's Borno state, where 60 Boko Haram members were killed.