Boko Haram admit kidnap of 300 boys
Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for the abduction of more than 300 students from a school in Nigeria’s northwest region, in a significant expansion of the terrorist group’s reach across the country.
Abubakar Shekau, the leader of the group, said yesterday that his fighters were behind the attack during a four-minute audio message.
Armed jihadists on motorcycles stormed a secondary school in the city of Kankara in Katsina State on Friday. The assailants kidnapped hundreds of boys and fled into a large forest where they have remained at large.
‘‘We are behind what happened in Katsina,’’ said Shekau. ‘‘What happened in Katsina was done to promote Islam and discourage unIslamic practices as Western education is not the type of education permitted by Allah and his holy prophet.’’
In the past, captive children have been used as sex slaves, suicide bombers and child soldiers.
The attack is a worrying development in Nigeria’s war against terror. Boko Haram, which means ‘‘Western education is forbidden’’, typically operates in the country’s northeast.
However, analysts believe that
Boko Haram cells have sprung up in the northwest and north central regions. Bulama Bukarti, a Boko Haram specialist at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, said that several hundred fighters have recently claimed allegiance to the terror group in Zamfara State and Niger State.
Both states are to the west of Katsina State where the kidnapping took place. The three states are connected by the large forest into which the kidnappers fled.
Bello Masari, the Katsina state governor, told Muhammadu Buhari, the Nigerian president, during a briefing on Tuesday that the jihadists had contacted the government to discuss negotiations. He said that 17 boys had been rescued but more than 300 were still missing.
Fears are mounting of a rerun of failed attempts to return many of the 276 female students abducted in Nigeria’s northeast town of Chibok by Boko Haram in 2014. Some of them were forced to marry their abductors, others were brainwashed or forced into suicide bombings. More than 100 of them are still missing six years on. –