Boko Haram Denies Cease Fire Agreement With FG, Vows More Attacks on Schools, Teachers

Shaking a finger while cradling an
assault rifle, the bearded leader of
Nigeria’s extremist Islamic sect
threatens to burn down more schools
and kill teachers. But he denies his
fighters are killing children.
In a new video released Saturday,
Islamic radical Abubakar Shekau said
he “fully supports” attacks on several
schools in northeastern Nigeria in
recent weeks.
The United Nations Children’s Fund
says at least 48 students and seven
teachers have been killed since June,
with some burned alive in a dormitory
this month.
“We support the work they did at the
school, at Mamudo and Damaturu,
and other attacks in 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.”
But Shekau insisted his fighters do
not kill children.
“We don’t touch small children, we
only burn the schools,” he says. “Our
religion does not permit us to touch
small children and women, we don’t
kill children.”
He said his fighters would, however,
attack teachers. “School teachers who
are teaching Western education? We
will kill them! We will kill them!” he
warns, wagging his finger.
Shekau is a leader of the extremist
group Boko Haram, whose name
means “Western education is
forbidden” in the Hausa language.
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.
President Goodluck Jonathan
declared a state of emergency on May
14 in the three northeastern states of
Adamawa, Borno and Yobe.
In northwestern Nigeria this week,
security forces said they engaged in a
five-hour gunbattle against a group of
Boko Haram fighters in Sokoto. The
city is home to the Sultan of Sokoto,
the pre-eminent leader of Nigeria’s
tens of millions of Muslims, who
preaches against extremism and who
has condemned Boko Haram.
Police said they recovered a weapons
cache including assault rifles,
grenades, rocket launchers and
homemade bombs.
There has been no attack on Sokoto
since July 30 last year, when suicide
bombers in cars laden with
explosives simultaneously attacked a
police station and the regional police
headquarters. The two bombers and
at least three other people were
killed. At the time, Boko Haram
threatened to assassinate the sultan.
Recently, the extremists have started
targeting civilians, especially
government workers, Christian
pastors, school teachers and their
students.
In the video, received by The
Associated Press 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,” he said, speaking in his
native Hausa.
“The Qur’an teaches that we must
shun democracy, we must shun
Western education, we must shun the
constitution,” Shekau said in the 15-
minute video.