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In a videotaped statement seen on Monday, Nigeria’s Islamic extremist leader threatened to sell the more than 200 teenage schoolgirls abducted from a school in the remote northeast of the country three weeks ago, according to CBS News.
For the first time, Abubakar Shekau also claimed responsibility for the April 15 mass abduction, in a video that was reviewed by The Associated Press. Abubakar Shekau, also known by the alias Darul Tawheed, is an Islamist leader of the Nigerian militant group Boko Haram. In June 2012 the U.S. State Department designated Shekau as a terrorist and in effect froze any of his assets in America.
“I abducted your girls,” Abubakar Shekau said according to a report by CBS News, which means “Western education is sinful.” By Allah, I will sell them in the marketplace,” he said in the hour-long video that starts with fighters lofting automatic rifles and shooting in the air as they chant “Allahu akbar!” or “God is great.”
“I will marry off a woman at the age of 12. I will marry off a girl at the age of nine,” Shekau said elsewhere in the video. According to the Huffington Post, Civic organizations had warned earlier that the young women were being forced to marry the extremists for as little as $12.
Nigeria’s police have reported that more than 300 girls were abducted. Of that number, 276 remain are still in captivity and 53 girls that have escaped. According to CBS News, some of the girls who have escaped from the mass kidnapping shared that their captors identified themselves as being Boko Haram.
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According to News.com.au, the United States issued a security warning to its citizens in Nigeria to avoid two Sheraton hotels in the financial capital, Lagos, because of an unspecified threat. Unprecedented security has also been put in place for the regional meeting of the World Economic Forum, which takes place in Abuja from Wednesday to Friday.
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