A militiaman behind the camera makes a gesture and starts recording a short video. Those who are on the scene begin to shoot in the air with the cry of 'Allah akbar' then let the man speak in front of the armored vehicle. He wears a camouflage, but it looks like a stand-in for the protagonist you expect to be able to enter the 'set' at any moment.
I kidnapped your girls - says the man changing his tone several times while, between lucidity and madness, he reads a text without any sense mentioning Lincoln too - for Allah, I will sell them to the slave market.
Another fool wins the world media spotlight.
The leader of the terrorist organization Boko Haram (which would stand for "Western education is sacrilegious") is called Abubakar Shekau, already known to Western intelligence agencies.
Ruthless, presumptuous and arrogant (he calls himself an intellectual and theologian) he is a terrorist born in the shadow of the founder of the movement. He considers himself invincible and direct executor of Allah's orders.
In his numerous online messages (where he seems to speak under the influence of some amazing substance, seeing is believing, probably 'qat'), some passages of the Koran are always present in addition to the phrases against the West typical of Islamic fundamentalists.
But forget Bin Laden's cold lucidity. This man looks like a caricature of a terrorist. Maybe that's why it's scary.
He swore war on the Catholics, that is, on the 50% of the Nigerian population. He claims to follow Salafi doctrine. Megalomaniac ("Obama you can't touch me, but I do, I have the strength to do it"), he loves to torture his enemies before killing them. On him hangs a bounty of 7 million dollars placed by the US Department of Defense. The Nigerian government (which has shown how incapable and corrupt), on the other hand, would pay 50 million dollars for its capture. Dead or alive.
Abubakar Shekau is the most wanted man in Africa (at least officially). He is the leader of the terrorist group Boko Haram from the 2009, after the death of the founder Ustaz Mohammed Yusuf (a degree in theology from the University of Medina, in his boycott against the West he had declared war even on dice stock). According to one estimate, Shekau would command a militia of a few thousand men.
Abubakar Shekau, the 15 last April, attacked a women's institution in the north-east of the country with around 300 girls inside. 276 were taken prisoner, while 53 managed to escape. Eight other girls were kidnapped last Tuesday in a village near the Chad border. Finally, last Wednesday, eleven other girls were kidnapped in the last raid on the village of Warabe. World public opinion, after seeing Shekau's video in which she mocks the West for the kidnapping, is shocked.
The United States, the United Kingdom and France have decided to take action to save the kidnapped Nigerian female students. A small American team of highly specialized CIA and FBI personnel will arrive in Nigeria in the coming hours. The Pentagon, however, was clear: no assault team or rescue mission is currently in place by US special departments. Our primary mission is to save the girls - President Obama said - but sooner or later we will also deal with the Boko Haram group.
The French government will send agents of security services to help trace the terrorist group Boko Haram and its hostages. Faced with this ignominy - said Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius - France must react. This crime cannot be left unpunished.Londra is about to send a team of MI6 while China, too, said it was ready to provide satellite images.
However, after three weeks of the abduction, the information remains scarce. Terrorists hold 300 girls hostage. The group promised to sell them as slaves. At least two girls would have died, while other 20 may have fallen ill. The girls could be hidden in one of the many abandoned bunkers in the Sambisa forest which is eight times larger than Yellowstone National Park and is home to some of the most poisonous snakes on the planet.
Boko Haram is one of the three largest Islamic extremist groups in Africa. In addition to Boko Haram in Nigeria, there is Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and Al Shabab in Somalia. For about two years, the three groups have been sharing money, weapons and training camps. Boko Haram and Al Shabab have always had a strong nationalist vocation.
In 2014 alone, Boko Haram militias have made 1.500 dead in Nigeria.
Franco Iacch
