U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is offering law enforcement assistance to help rescue more than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram, a senior Justice Department source told The Huffington Post on Monday.
Holder has also ordered an intelligence assessment of Boko Haram, which the United States designated as a terrorist organization in November 2013. The group, whose name means “Western education is sin,” receives training from al Qaeda and its affiliates.
“Let me be clear,” Secretary of State John Kerry said Saturday during a trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo. “The kidnapping of hundreds of children by Boko Haram is an unconscionable crime, and we will do everything possible to support the Nigerian government to return these young women to their homes.”
On April 14, members of Boko Haram invaded a boarding school in Nigeria, pulled 276 girls from their beds and packed them into trucks. At least 53 girls have escaped, while the rest are allegedly being sold as brides to local militants for $12, according to the girls’ relatives.
Abubakar Shekau, a man claiming to be the leader of Boko Haram, took credit for the kidnapping in a video obtained Monday by Agence France-Press and said he is selling the girls as wives to prevent them from receiving a Western education.
“I abducted your girls. I will sell them in the market, by Allah,” Shekau said, according to a CNN translation. “There is a market for selling humans. Allah says I should sell. He commands me to sell. I will sell women.”
Shekau added, “Girls, you should go and get married.”
The Nigerian government claims to be handling the situation, but weeks after the kidnapping, Nigerian officials appear to be no closer to finding the missing girls. The government’s perceived ineptitude has inspired international protests and the globally trending Twitter hashtag #BringBackOurGirls.
“Access to education is a basic right & an unconscionable reason to target innocent girls,” former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrote Sunday on Twitter. “We must stand up to terrorism. #BringBackOurGirls.”
The State Department’s annual report on global terrorism, released last week, found that Boko Haram “receives the bulk of its funding from bank robberies and related criminal activities, including extortion and kidnapping for ransoms.” The group has killed thousands of people in Nigeria since 2009, according to the report.
It is unclear whether Nigeria will accept Holder’s offer of help. CNN reported that Nigeria has not yet asked for help from the United States in finding the girls, possibly because they do not want “visible American forces in their country.”
article by Laura Bassett via huffingtonpost.com
Posts tagged as “Secretary of State”
WASHINGTON (AP) — Just in time for inauguration coverage, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has joined CBS News as a contributor.
Rice, who served as secretary of state during President George W. Bush’s second term, made her debut on “Face the Nation” Sunday and will be included in inauguration coverage on Monday.
CBS News Chairman Jeff Fager and president David Rhodes made the announcement Sunday, saying Rice “will use her insight and vast experience to explore issues facing America at home and abroad.”
Rice was the first African-American woman to serve as secretary of state, following Colin Powell in the office. She was Bush’s national security adviser during his first term and worked on the National Security Council under his father, President George H.W. Bush.
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell on CBS This Morning earlier today.
Saying that “I think we ought to keep on the track that we are on” and that fellow Republican Mitt Romney has not “thought through these issues as thoroughly as he should have,” former secretary of state and retired Gen. Colin Powell this morning endorsed President Obama’s re-election bid. Powell made the announcement on CBS This Morning. The show has been tweeting his comments and has posted video here. Then-Sen. Barack Obama also got Powell’s endorsement in 2008. Powell also told CBS that “I’m a Republican of a more moderate mold … dying breed.”
article by Mark Memmott via npr.org