Boko Haram denies cease fire agreement with Nigerian Government
Boko Haram laughed off Nigeria's
announcement of a ceasefire agreement, saying there is no such deal and the
abducted schoolgirls have been converted to Islam and married off.
Nigerian officials announced two
weeks ago that they had struck a deal with the Islamist terror group.
The deal, the government said,
included the release of more than 200 girls whose kidnapping in April at a
boarding school in the nation's north stunned the world.
"Don't you know the over 200
Chibok schoolgirls have converted to Islam?" Abubakar Shekau said. "They have now
memorized two chapters of the Koran."
Shekau slammed reports of their
planned release.
"We married them off. They are
in their marital homes," he said, chuckling.
The group's leader also denied
knowing the negotiator with whom the government claimed it worked out a deal,
saying he does not represent Boko Haram.
"We will not spare him and will
slaughter him if we get him," he said of the negotiator.
In addition to denying the deal, he
vowed more attacks, more "war, striking and killing with gun."
It wasn't clear when the video was
made.
Shekau also said the militant group
was holding a German hostage. CNN's attempts to reach officials of Chad, who helped
strike the purported deal, were unsuccessful Saturday.
The ceasefire deal announced October
17 followed a month of negotiations with representatives of the group, Hassan
Tukur, an aide to Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, said at the time.
Nigerian officials met with Boko
Haram in Chad twice during talks mediated by Chadian President Idriss Deby,
according to the aide.
After the deal was announced, the
aide said final negotiations on the girls' release would be completed at a
meeting a week later in Chad.
That day passed without any signs of
the girls.
Despite government claims of a
ceasefire, Boko Haram fighters have continued deadly attacks
on villages, killing scores and abducting an unknown number of people. One
attack a day after the purported ceasefire killed eight people.
Days later, members of the Islamist
terror group abducted at least 60 young women and girls from Christian villages
in northeast Nigeria, residents said Thursday.
Heavily armed fighters left 1,500
naira, or about $9, and kolanuts as a bride price for each of the women
abducted, residents said.
The militant group, which shuns
western education, is trying to impose strict Sharia law across Nigeria, which
is split between a majority Muslim north and a mostly Christian south. Like ISIS, it has ambitions for a caliphate, or
religious state.
The group's attacks have intensified
in recent years in an apparent show of defiance for the nation's military
onslaught. Its ambitions appear to have expanded to the destruction of the
government.
As part of its insurgency, it has
bombed schools, churches and mosques, kidnapped women and children and
assassinated politicians and religious leaders alike.
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