Shaking a finger while cradling an assault rifle, the bearded leader of Nigeria’s extremist Islamic sect threatened to burn down more schools and kill teachers. However, he denies his fighters are killing children.
In a new video released on Saturday, Islamic radical Abubakar Shekau said he “fully supports” attacks on several schools in northeastern Nigeria in recent weeks.
The UN Children’s Fund says at least 48 students and seven teachers have been killed since last month, with some burned alive in a dormitory this month.
Photo: AFP
“We support the work they did at the school, at Mamudo and Damaturu, and other attacks on other schools,” said Shekau, who wore military fatigues in the video. “We are going to burn down the schools, if they are not Islamic religious schools for Allah.”
However, Shekau insisted his fighters do not kill children.
“We don’t touch small children, we only burn the schools,” he said. “Our religion does not permit us to touch small children and women, we don’t kill children.”
However, he said his fighters would attack teachers.
“School teachers who are teaching Western education? We will kill them, we will kill them,” he said, wagging his finger.
Shekau is the leader of the extremist group Boko Haram, whose name means “Western education is forbidden” in the Hausa language. There are also splinter groups, so it was not clear if he was trying to distance his group from assaults targeting children.
Attacks on schools have continued although thousands of troops have deployed in northeastern Nigeria to put down the Islamic extremists’ violent campaign which poses the greatest threat in years to the security of Nigeria, Africa’s biggest oil producer.
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency on May 14 in the three northeastern states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe.
In the video, received by reporters through intermediaries, Shekau also denied he is negotiating a peace agreement with the Nigerian government.
“We will not enter into any agreement with non-believers or the Nigerian government,” Shekau said in his native Hausa.
“The Koran teaches that we must shun democracy, we must shun Western education, we must shun the constitution,” he said.
At the end, he speaks in English to denounce the West, accusing it of trying to destroy Islam and working “to tactically make the Koran insignificant and unimportant.”
MINERAL DEPOSITS: The Pacific nation is looking for new foreign partners after its agreement with Canada’s Metals Co was terminated ‘mutually’ at the end of last year Pacific nation Kiribati says it is exploring a deep-sea mining partnership with China, dangling access to a vast patch of Pacific Ocean harboring coveted metals and minerals. Beijing has been ramping up efforts to court Pacific nations sitting on lucrative seafloor deposits of cobalt, nickel and copper — recently inking a cooperation deal with Cook Islands. Kiribati opened discussions with Chinese Ambassador Zhou Limin (周立民) after a longstanding agreement with leading deep-sea mining outfit The Metals Co fell through. “The talk provides an exciting opportunity to explore potential collaboration for the sustainable exploration of the deep-ocean resources in Kiribati,” the government said
The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, was sacked yesterday, days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he no longer trusts him, and fallout from a report on the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. “The Government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to end ISA Director Ronen Bar’s term of office,” a statement said. He is to leave his post when his successor is appointed by April 10 at the latest, the statement said. Netanyahu on Sunday cited an “ongoing lack of trust” as the reason for moving to dismiss Bar, who joined the agency in 1993. Bar, meant to
Indonesia’s parliament yesterday amended a law to allow members of the military to hold more government roles, despite criticisms that it would expand the armed forces’ role in civilian affairs. The revision to the armed forces law, pushed mainly by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s coalition, was aimed at expanding the military’s role beyond defense in a country long influenced by its armed forces. The amendment has sparked fears of a return to the era of former Indonesian president Suharto, who ex-general Prabowo once served and who used military figures to crack down on dissent. “Now it’s the time for us to ask the
The central Dutch city of Utrecht has installed a “fish doorbell” on a river lock that lets viewers of an online livestream alert authorities to fish being held up as they make their springtime migration to shallow spawning grounds. The idea is simple: An underwater camera at Utrecht’s Weerdsluis lock sends live footage to a Web site. When somebody watching the site sees a fish, they can click a button that sends a screenshot to organizers. When they see enough fish, they alert a water worker who opens the lock to let the fish swim through. Now in its fifth year, the
RSS