Fractured Boko Haram Poses New Threat for Christians
- Updated Aug 23, 2016
The Boko Haram terrorist group, which recently split, still killed 10 and kidnapped 13 more women and children from the Christian village of Chibok Saturday.
The group is facing internal fracturing, however. Earlier this month, ISIS supported a new leader for the group. Abu Musab al Barawi was chosen because of a promise to focus attacks on Christians.
He promised “booby-trapping and blowing up every church that we are able to reach, and killing all of those who we find from the citizens of the cross,” al Barawi reportedly told an Islamic newspaper.
But the former leader for Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, hasn’t stepped down. Instead, he said al Barnawi is an “infidel.”
The most recent kidnapping appears to have come from Shekau. In a video of the kidnapped Chibok schoolgirls released from Boko Haram, a masked militant said the girls would never be released until captured Boko Haram terrorists are released.
“We are being extremely careful because the situation has been compounded by the split in the leadership of Boko Haram,” stated Nigeria’s minister of information and culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.
Boko Haram has killed more than 20,000 people since 2009, according to the Institute for Economics and Peace.
Publication date: August 23, 2016
