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MAIDUGURI, Nigeria -- With a malevolent laugh, the leader
of Nigeria's Islamic extremists tells the world that more than 200
kidnapped schoolgirls have all been converted to Islam and married off,
dashing hopes for their freedom.
"If you knew
the state your daughters are in today, it might lead some of you ... to
die from grief," Abubakar Shekau sneers, addressing the parents of the
girls and young women kidnapped from a remote boarding school more than
six months ago.
In a new video released late
Friday night, the Boko Haram leader also denies there is a cease-fire
with the Nigerian government and threatens to kill an unidentified
German hostage.
"Don't you know we are still
holding your German hostage (who is) always crying," he taunts. "If we
want, we will hack him or slaughter him or shoot him."
A
German development worker was kidnapped at gunpoint in Gombi, a town in
Nigeria's northeast Gombi in July. Police reported he was ambushed as
he drove to work.
Germany's Foreign Minister
Frank-Walter Steinmeier last week told reporters in Abuja, Nigeria's
capital, that he had no new information about a German abductee.
In
the new video, Shekau wears a camouflage tunic and pants and the black
and white flag of al-Qaida is by his side. He is flanked by masked and
armed fighters standing in front of four military pickup trucks mounted
with anti-aircraft guns. Boko Haram has looted many weapons and vehicles
including armored cars from Nigeria's military.
The
military has several times claimed to have killed Shekau, and says any
new videos are made by a look-alike. But the United States has not
removed a $7 million ransom on the head of the extremist leader.
On
Oct. 17, Nigeria's military chief, Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh,
announced that Boko Haram had agreed to an immediate cease-fire to end a
5-year insurgency in which thousands have died and hundreds of
thousands have been driven from homes in northeast Nigeria. And
government officials said they expected the Chibok girls to be released
any day.
But Shekau denies in the video that
he has agreed to any truce and says he is dedicated to fighting and
dying a martyr's death to guarantee him a place in paradise.
"You
people should understand that we only obey Allah, we tread the path of
the Prophet. We hope to die on this path ... Our goal is the garden of
eternal bliss," he says.
He said Boko Haram is
interested only in "battle, hitting, striking and killing with the gun,
which we look forward to like a tasty meal," he said.
The
fighting and abductions have continued, with Boko Haram seizing the
commercial center of Mubi this week and fighting raging Friday around
nearby Vimtin, the village where Badeh was born.
And
the only news of the girls has come from Shekau, who appeared to dash
hopes that they would be released in an exchange for detained Boko Haram
fighters.
"The issue of the girls is long
forgotten because I have long ago married them off," Shekau says with a
chortle. The extremist fighters have ordered girls to stay out of
Western-style schools and get married. Boko Haram is a nickname meaning
"Western education is sinful" in the Hausa language.
An
earlier video in May showed some of the kidnapped girls, including two
explaining why they had converted to Islam. Unconfirmed reports have
indicated the girls have been divided into groups and that some have
been carried across borders, into Cameroon and Chad. There also have
been reports that they were forced to marry fighters who paid a nominal
bride price equivalent to $12.
Some 276 girls
and young women were kidnapped in the early hours of April 15 from a
boarding school in the remote town of Chibok. Dozens escaped on their
own in the first couple of days but 219 remain missing.
The
plight of the girls attracted international outrage, with demands that
Boko Haram free them. The Nigerian government and military's failure to
secure their release has brought criticism that President Goodluck
Jonathan is uncaring of their fate.
Shekau in
August announced that Boko Haram wanted to establish an Islamic
caliphate, along the lines of the IS group in Syria and Iraq. Fleeing
residents have reported that hundreds of people are being detained for
infractions of the extremists' version of strict Shariah law in several
towns and villages under their control.
Shekau's
video announcement further discredits the government of President
Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian southerner who on Thursday formally
announced his candidacy for elections on Feb. 14, 2015, in Africa's most
populous nation. Nigeria's 160 million people are divided almost
equally between Muslims who dominate the north and Christians in the
south. The West African nation is the biggest oil producer on the
continent and has its biggest economy.
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