Boko Haram leader offers to swap girls

A video that surfaced Monday shows the leader of Nigerian Islamic extremist group Boko Haram explaining he would trade more than 200 kidnapped girls for imprisoned members of his group. The video comes as the United States, Great Britain and other Western governments are stepping up their participation in efforts to rescue the girls.

Agence France-Presse obtained and posted the video online showing the group’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, admitting his group kidnapped the young girls. The leader then threatened to sell them into slavery.

{mosads}“If you want us to release your girls we kidnapped, those of them that have not accepted Islam, they are now gathered in numbers. And we treat them well the way the prophet would treat well any infidel he seized. They are staying [with us]. We will never release them until our brethren are released,” Shekau says in the video, displaying an automatic weapon.

“It is now four years or five years that you arrested our brethren and they are still in your prison,” Shekau says.

About 130 young girls are seen wearing traditional Muslim veils in the video and chanting verses from the Qur’an.

In April, members of Boko Haram kidnapped more than 300 girls from their school in Nigeria. A few have since escaped, but the group is believed to still hold about 276 girls.