Nigerian extremist leader admits to abducting girls
Heather Blockey/CORBIS


A leader of the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram has released a video admitting to the capture of 276 Nigerian girls last month.
In the video, Abubakar Shekau says that he abducted the girls and plans to "sell them on the market, by Allah." Boko Haram, which roughly translates to "Western education is forbidden," has attacked various targets in northern Nigeria for years, but April's kidnapping was "its biggest attack yet," Time reports.
Yesterday, President Goodluck Jonathan promised to find the girls and return them to their homes. "Wherever these girls are, we'll get them out," he said in a TV broadcast. This weekend, thousands of people across the globe joined in the campaign to bring the girls home, sending tweets with the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls.
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"The kidnapping of hundreds of children by Boko Haram is an unconscionable crime," John Kerry said at a press conference Saturday. "We will do everything possible to support the Nigerian government to return these young women to their homes and to hold the perpetrators to justice."
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Meghan DeMaria is a staff writer at TheWeek.com. She has previously worked for USA Today and Marie Claire.
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