Boko Haram leader 'supports' Nigeria school massacre
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Picture taken May 29, 2013 from a video obtained by AFP shows the leader of the Islamist extremist group Boko Haram Abubakar Shekau. In a ten-minute video delivered to AFP Saturday, Shekau said he supported a July 6 attack on a school that killed 42 people, but did not claim responsibility for the massacre, (Boko Haram/AFP/File)
The head of Nigeria's Boko Haram Islamists said he supported a July 6 attack on a school that killed 42 people, but did not claim responsibility for the massacre, in a video obtained by AFP on Saturday.
"We fully support the attack on this Western education school in Mamudo," in northern Yobe state, Abubakar Shekau said in the 10-minute video message.
The video was delivered to AFP in a manner consistent with previous statements from the Islamist leader, who has been declared a global terrorist by the United States.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The early morning gun and bomb attack at a boarding school in the Mamudo district of Yobe saw assailants round up students and staff in a dormitory before throwing explosives inside and opening fire, according to witnesses.
Most of those killed were students.
In the video, Shekau described all "Western education schools" as a "plot against Islam".
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}He however stopped short of claiming to have ordered the attack.
"We don't attack students," he said in the Hausa language message.
Yobe state was one of three areas placed under a state of emergency in May ahead of a sweeping military offensive against Boko Haram.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Roughly translated, Boko Haram means "Western education is sin."