More than 300 students kidnapped in Nigeria: Boko Haram takes credit for the fact

He Nigerian jihadist group Boko Haram blamed today for the kidnapping of more than 300 students from a secondary school attacked last Friday in Nigeria.

“We are behind what happened in Katsina,” Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau said in an audio message posted by the Nigerian news portal HumAngle.

“What happened in Katsina was done to promote Islam and discourage non-Islamic practices, as Western education is not the type of education allowed by Allah and his Holy Prophet,” Shekau said.

According to HumAngle, Boko Haram’s announcement makes the kidnapping of the students the group’s first major operation in northwestern Nigeria, as it tends to focus its attacks on the north-east of the country.

In the past, the acts of jihadists in the northwest were often limited to ambushes of security agents and kidnappings on a smaller scale for ransom.

Last Friday’s attack took place at night on the premises of the Government Science Secondary School, a boys’ school located in the city of Kankara, in the state of Katsina.

A total of 333 students are still missing, according to the authorities of that state, specifying that the school housed 839 students.