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| In this photo taken from video by Nigeria's Boko Haram terrorist network, Monday May 12, 2014 shows the alleged missing girls abducted from the northeastern town of Chibok. The new video purports to show dozens of abducted schoolgirls, covered in jihab and praying in Arabic. It is the first public sight of the girls since more than 300 were kidnapped from a northeastern school the night of April 14 exactly four weeks ago. |
LAGOS, Nigeria
(AP) -- Under the guns of their captors, dozens of barefoot girls sat
huddled together wearing gray Muslim veils as they chanted Quranic
verses in Arabic. Some Christians among them said they had converted to
Islam.
"I swear to almighty Allah, you will
not see them again until you release our brothers that you have
captured," the leader of the Boko Haram terrorist network threatened, an
assault rifle slung across his chest.
A video
released by the group Monday offered the first public glimpse of what
it claimed were some of the nearly 300 Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped a
month ago. The girls' plight has spurred a global movement to secure
their freedom.
It is not known how many
suspected Boko Haram members are detained by security forces. Hundreds
were killed last month when leader Abubakar Shekau's fighters stormed
the military's main northeastern barracks in Maiduguri, the terror
group's birthplace and the headquarters of a year-old military state of
emergency to put down the 5-year-old Islamic uprising.
In the video, two of the girls were singled out for questioning.
"Why have you become a Muslim?" one girl, who looked to be in her early teens, was asked.
"The
reason why I became a Muslim is because the path we are on is not the
right path," the girl said, nervously shifting her body from side to
side, her eyes darting back and forth.
"We
should enter the right path so that Allah will be happy with us," added
the girl, who said her name had been changed to Halima because she had
converted from Christianity to Islam. Like the other girls, she wore a
bulky gray hijab that covered her body from head to toe, revealing only
her face.
A second girl, who appeared to be in
her mid-teens, was asked if she or any of the others had been
mistreated. No, she said, adding that they had experienced nothing
"except righteousness."
As the girls chanted
Islamic verses, some clasped their hands together in what appeared to be
the Christian style of prayer before quickly turning their palms
upward, as Muslim worshippers do.
The girls' families have said most of those seized April 15 from a school in the northeastern town of Chibok are Christians.
It
was impossible to fully authenticate the video, though parents were
trying to turn on a generator in Chibok, hoping to watch the video and
identify their daughters, said a town leader, Pogu Bitrus.
"There's
an atmosphere of hope - hope that these girls are alive, whether they
have been forced to convert to Islam or not," he told The Associated
Press by telephone. "We want to be able to say, `These are our girls.'"
The video showed about 100 girls, indicating they may have been broken up into smaller groups as some reports have indicated.
Fifty-three girls managed to escape and 276 remain missing, police say.
Bitrus
said vegetation in the video looked like the Sambisa Forest, some 20
miles (30 kilometers) from Chibok, where the girls were believed to have
been spirited away.
In Washington, White
House spokesman Jay Carney said U.S. intelligence experts were "combing
over every detail" of the latest recording. He said administration
officials have seen the video and "have no reason to question its
authenticity."
A Nigerian government statement
said it was reviewing the video and would "continue to explore all
options for the release and safe return of our girls back to their
homes."
In a video last week, Shekau
threatened to sell the girls into slavery. It arrived amid unverified
reports that Christians among the students had been forced to convert to
Islam and that some were taken to neighboring Cameroon and Chad, where
they were forced to marry their abductors. Boko Haram means "Western
education is sinful."
The latest video,
obtained by The Associated Press, came through channels that have
provided previous messages from Shekau, who spoke in the video in the
Hausa language of northern Nigeria. Wearing camouflage fatigues, he
clutched an assault rifle in the footage, which was imprinted with the
Boko Haram insignia - a Quran resting on two crossed assault rifles -
and below a black jihadi flag.
The United States put a $7 million ransom on Shekau last year.
The
mass abductions and failure of Nigeria's government and military to
rescue the girls has aroused outrage at home and abroad. Last week,
Nigeria belatedly accepted offers of help from the United States,
Britain and other nations.
President Goodluck
Jonathan's acceptance Sunday of help from Israel, which plans to send a
counter-terrorism team, has angered some Muslims.
A
leading Islamic scholar, Ahmed Mahmud-Gumi, warned in a statement that
accepting help from Israel would "turn Nigeria into another global arena
and battlefield for the filthy neocolonial squabbles by interest
groups." On Saturday he said allowing Western soldiers onto Nigerian
soil could make the country a new magnet for foreign Islamic militants
who want to confront the United States and others.
The
foreign help does not involve boots on the ground but rather experts in
intelligence gathering, counter-terrorism and hostage negotiations.
The
U.S. team consists of some 30 people drawn from the State and Defense
departments, the White House said Monday. Among them are five State
Department officials, two strategic communications experts, a civil
security expert and a regional medical support officer. Four FBI
officials with expertise in safe recovery, negotiations and preventing
future kidnappings are also part of the group.
The
Pentagon said 16 Defense Department personnel were on the team,
including planners and advisers who were already in Nigeria and have
been redirected to assist the government.
French
President Francois Hollande invited Jonathan and leaders from
neighboring Benin, Chad, Cameroon and Niger, as well as representatives
of Britain, the EU and the United States, to a summit on Saturday to
focus on Boko Haram, terrorism and insecurity in West Africa.
A
French official said Jonathan had agreed to attend. He spoke on
condition of anonymity because details of the gathering have not been
finalized.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
said Said Djinnit, his special representative for West Africa, is in
Abuja for meetings with the president and other officials on how the
United Nations and its member states can help.
