In his confession, Muhammad (right) said he was a farmer from Baga and that he'd been approached by a police officer
who offered him money in exchange for infiltrating Boko Haram.
'We went to see a man from Mijka and a police officer that was with him. The officer gave me 5,000 Naira' Muhammad tells the camera.
He said their mission was to spy on Boko
Haram, and in exchange, he'd get 'a lot of money and will
never go back to being a farmer again'. After the confessions, the
militants beheaded both men and placed their severed heads on their
chest. See more photos after the cut...
The latest video from Nigeria's Boko Haram Islamic extremist group
shows the bodies of two beheaded men accused of spying, and copies some
of the hallmarks of propaganda from the Islamic State group. The
SITE intelligence group said the video called "Harvest of Spies" was
posted Monday on Twitter by Boko Haram's new media arm. The video is
much slicker than previous ones and SITE said it borrows certain
elements from Isis productions, such as the sound of a beating heart and
heavy breathing immediately before the execution. Boko Haram has said in social media messages last month that it is considering swearing allegiance to Isis.
A still from Boko Haram's new video.
A still from Boko Haram's new video.
Monday's video shows a man identified as Dawoud Muhammad of Baga city on his knees in the bush before several armed and masked fighters.
In response to questions, Muhammad says a police officer paid him 5,000 naira ($25) to spy and promised to make him so rich he would never have to farm again. The other man is identified as Muhammad Awlu.
Boko Haram's violent campaign in Nigeria killed at least 10,000 people last year, according to the Council on Foreign Affairs. At least 1.6 million people have been driven from their homes in the group's brutal 6-year uprising to create an Islamic state in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation of 160 million people divided between mainly Muslims in the north and Christians in the south.
Boko Haram began emulating the Islamic State group last August, declaring it had established an Islamic caliphate in territory it controls in northeastern Nigeria.
In a major turnabout, Nigeria's military in recent weeks has wrested back a score of towns and villages that had been under the control of the insurgents for months.
