Princess Luna
13th January 2012, 16:39
The leader of Nigeria's Boko Haram has said recent killings of Christians were justifiable revenge attacks and President Goodluck Jonathan had no power to stop the radical group's attacks, in the first video of him posted online.
Boko Haram (http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2012/01/20121974241393331.html), whose name translates from the northern Hausa language as "Western education is sinful", has been behind almost daily killings in its home base in the largely Muslim northeast, most recently targeting Christians.
"Christians, everyone knows what they have done to us and Muslims ... we were attacked and we decided to defend ourselves and, because we were on the right path, Allah has made us stronger," Abubakar Shekau says in Hausa in a 15-minute video posted on YouTube, sat in front of two Kalashnikov rifles and wearing a camouflage bullet proof jacket.
"Jonathan, (you) know full well that this thing is beyond your powers," he added, referring to the president.
Shekau is understood to have taken over control of Boko Haram, which wants sharia law more widely applied across Africa's most populous nation, after the sect's founder Mohammed Yusuf was killed in police custody in 2009 following an uprising in which 700 people were killed.
"Everyone knows how our leader was murdered and everyone knows the way the Muslims were killed," Shekau says, remaining stony faced and calm throughout.
"Catastrophe is caused by unbelief, unrest is unbelief, injustice is unbelief, democracy is unbelief and the constitution is unbelief."
Ethnic and religious violence in various parts of the country has added to the chaos caused by the removal of fuel subsidy in a country roughly divided between a mainly Muslim north and the predominantly Christian south.
Twenty people were killed in four separate incidents in the last few days.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2012/01/20121122529369976.html
Boko Haram (http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2012/01/20121974241393331.html), whose name translates from the northern Hausa language as "Western education is sinful", has been behind almost daily killings in its home base in the largely Muslim northeast, most recently targeting Christians.
"Christians, everyone knows what they have done to us and Muslims ... we were attacked and we decided to defend ourselves and, because we were on the right path, Allah has made us stronger," Abubakar Shekau says in Hausa in a 15-minute video posted on YouTube, sat in front of two Kalashnikov rifles and wearing a camouflage bullet proof jacket.
"Jonathan, (you) know full well that this thing is beyond your powers," he added, referring to the president.
Shekau is understood to have taken over control of Boko Haram, which wants sharia law more widely applied across Africa's most populous nation, after the sect's founder Mohammed Yusuf was killed in police custody in 2009 following an uprising in which 700 people were killed.
"Everyone knows how our leader was murdered and everyone knows the way the Muslims were killed," Shekau says, remaining stony faced and calm throughout.
"Catastrophe is caused by unbelief, unrest is unbelief, injustice is unbelief, democracy is unbelief and the constitution is unbelief."
Ethnic and religious violence in various parts of the country has added to the chaos caused by the removal of fuel subsidy in a country roughly divided between a mainly Muslim north and the predominantly Christian south.
Twenty people were killed in four separate incidents in the last few days.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2012/01/20121122529369976.html