Boko Haram Demands Release of Fighters for Kidnapped Girls

Nigeria: Boko Haram Demands Release of Fighters for Kidnapped Girls Written by Warren Mass

Nigeria: Boko Haram Demands Release of Fighters for Kidnapped Girls Islamist terrorists from the Boko Haram group have demanded that Nigerian security forces release its fighters jailed by the government in exchange for the release of the girls the terrorist group kidnapped from a private school on April 14.

Speaking in a video recorded by the militant group, Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau said: “I swear to almighty Allah, you will not see them again until you release our brothers that you have captured.”

In June 2013, the U.S. State Department offered a standing reward of $7 million for information leading to Shekau’s capture through its Rewards for Justice program. The Nigerian army has offered $50 million Nigerian naira (approximately US$300,000) for his capture.

About 100 girls, out of an estimated 276 still held by the terrorists, were shown in the video. Fifty-three managed to escape from their captors.

Speaking to reporters at a May 12 press conference, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney was asked if the United States had verified the video and if it gave any clues that could help find the girls. Carney replied:

We have seen the video … and we have no reason to question its authenticity. Our intelligence experts are combing over every detail of it for clues that might help in the ongoing efforts to secure the release of the girls. As you know, President Obama has directed his team to do everything it can to support the Nigerian government’s efforts to find and free these girls…. Our interdisciplinary team with representatives from the State Department, the Department of Defense, the FBI and others is up and running now at our embassy in Nigeria, helping to support the Nigerian government by providing military and law enforcement assistance as well as intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance support.

BBC reported a qualification to Shekau’s demands ignored by most of the media: “that captured girls who had not converted to Islam could be swapped for jailed fighters.” (Emphasis added.) Though exact figures are not available, reports indicate that the Chibok school from which the girls were abducted, which educated both Christian and Muslim students, had a predominately Christian student body. The village of Chibok is, itself, primarily Christian.

Shekau claimed that the girls shown in the video have been converted to Islam, saying: “These girls, these girls you occupy yourselves with … we have indeed liberated them. These girls have become Muslims.”

One girl singled out for questioning was asked: “Why have you become a Muslim?”

“The reason why I became a Muslim is because the path we are on is not the right path,” the girl answered. “We should enter the right path so that Allah will be happy with us,” continued the girl. She said her name had been changed to Halima because she had converted from Christianity to Islam.

AP reported that the girl appeared nervous, and as she spoke, she shifted her body from side to side, and her eyes darted back and forth. Like the other girls, she wore a hijab that covered her body from head to toe, revealing only her face.

If the report made by BBC is correct and only those girls who had not converted to Islam would be offered in exchange for jailed Boko Haram fighters, what is the prospect for those who “converted” — most likely under coercion? Ishaan Tharoor, who covers foreign affairs for the Washington Post, answered a rhetorical question in a May 6 report, “What is Boko Haram going to do to the girls?” His reply:

No one knows for sure, but many fear the worst. It’s been rumored the Christian girls in the group were forced to convert to Islam. A video released this week appears to show Boko Haram’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, declaring that the girls will be sold as brides — in effect, made into sex slaves. “God instructed me to sell them; they are his properties, and I will carry out his instructions,” says Shekau in the video. It’s unclear when the footage was shot.

Nigeria’s security forces and police have come under much criticism for their failure to prevent the abduction and for responding with too little, too late. A report from CNN noted that some residents of Chibok had received calls from friends and relatives in surrounding villages warning them that a convoy of militants was headed their way. After they reported this information to local authorities, police called for reinforcements but none arrived. In a cowardly response, most of the community — including the police, apparently — fled into the bush, leaving the girls asleep in their dorm rooms.

When the militants arrived, they overpowered the security guards assigned to the school and herded the girls onto their trucks. Some managed to escape, but the rest have not been seen since.

When CNN correspondents visited Chibok, they found that during the day, life in the village goes on pretty much as normal. But, wrote the reporter:

At night is when you see the fear and terror. The women, elderly and children go to sleep. And the young men stay awake, doing patrols, keeping vigil.

CNN’s team joined them, and discovered that one thing was clear: Chibok residents have stopped waiting for the government, they are protecting their own.

As for the girls, Nigeria and the rest of the world wait to see if an exchange can be worked out between the government and Boko Haram. At this point, a month after the abduction, and with the girls possibly being held at multiple camps in the bush, rescue by force seems unlikely.

Nigeria’s Special Duties Minister Tanimu Turaki told BBC that if Shekau is sincere, he should send representatives he trusts to meet the government’s standing committee on reconciliation.

Turaki told the BBC’s Focus on Africa program that “dialogue is a key option” in bringing the crisis to an end and that “an issue of this nature can be resolved outside of violence.”

While everyone who waits and prays for the safe return of the girls hopes that Turaki’s objective is realistic, it is also important to recognize that Boko Haram’s nature as a terrorist organization is to inflict terror, not peace. As we noted in our article last week, Nigerian security forces have found branches of Lebanon’s Hezbollah terrorist organization in the area of Nigeria where Boko Haram is strongest. BBC has also reported that “there has been growing concern that Boko Haram could be receiving backing from al-Qaeda-linked militants in other countries.”

With militants having strong terrorist connections such as those in control of northeast Nigeria, the outlook for the kidnapped girls does not appear to be very promising.

Islam, Slavery and Rape

Posted By Jamie Glazov On May 7, 2014 @ 12:20 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | No Comments

Boko Haram’s leader Abubakar Shekau recently made a video in which he taunted the mothers of the girls he kidnapped and bragged, while praising Allah, how he will sell them on the market.

Frontpage editors have decided to shed light on the Islamic context of Shekau’s barbaric acts and words by reprinting a segment of an interview from our November 23, 2007 issue, in which Dr. Bill Warner discussed the inspiration and sanctioning that Muslims find in Islam for slavery and rape:

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Bill Warner, the director of the Center for the Study of Political Islam (CSPI) and spokesman for politicalislam.com. CSPI’s goal is to teach the doctrine of political Islam through its books and it has produced an eleven book series on political Islam. Mr. Warner did not write the CSPI series, but he acts as the agent for a group of scholars who are the authors. The Center’s latest book is The Submission of Women and Slaves, Islamic Duality.

FP: Bill Warner, welcome back to Frontpage Magazine. This is the second part in our two-part series with you on the Center’s most recent book. In the first part we discussed Islam and its doctrine on the submission of women. In this second and final part we will discuss the matter of slavery.

Warner: It is a pleasure to work with Frontpage.

FP: So tell us in general where Islam stands on slavery.

Warner: Islam’s stand on slavery is based on its political principles of submission and duality. The principle of submission could not be clearer. By definition a slave is the most submissive of all people. You become a slave only when you have no more choices. A slave has completely submitted to a master.

The principle of duality is shown by the fact that Islam does not enslave Muslims, only kafirs (non-Muslims). Since only kafirs are enslaved, it assures that more of the world submits to Islam.

Islamic slavery is based on the Trilogy of the Koran, the Sira (Mohammed’s life) and the Hadith (the Traditions of Mohammed). All three texts say that slavery is permitted, ethical, desirable and a virtue. There is not one single negative word about slavery.

Slavery is seen as a process that brings kafirs to Islam. It is a virtue to free slaves, but Mohammed only freed slaves who submitted to Islam. If the kafir slave does not submit, then their children will. So given enough time, slaves convert to Islam. That is one of the reasons that Islam sees slavery as a positive.

Of course, there is another reason that Islam sees slavery as being so “good” and that is the money. Mohammed and the other jihadists made a fortune out of enslaving kafirs. Mohammed used the money for more jihad. So slavery financed the spread of Islam and jihad from the beginning.

FP: What were the ingredients of Mohammed’s own life in terms of slavery?

Warner: Mohammed is the perfect pattern for all humanity and his life was saturated in slavery. When his mother died, it was a freed slave who nursed him. His first wife owned slaves. One of his first converts was a slave. His closest friend, Abu Bakr, traded one of his black kafir slaves for a Muslim who was enslaved by a kafir.

But all of this was small change compared to his envolvement with slavery once he turned to jihad. In his first major battle at Badr, he stood by and prayed as his henchmen beat and tortured captured slaves to get information about the enemy kafirs.

Slaves made Mohammed’s pulpit. Slaves mended his cloths, cooked his food, and did every thing that a slave does for the master. He gave away slaves as gifts and received them as gifts. He went to war to kill the males so that the remaining people would surrender to be sold as slaves. Mohammed sold slaves on both the retail and wholesale markets.

He offered captured slaves their freedom if they would first agree that he was the prophet of Allah. A kafir slave then became a slave of Allah, because all Muslims are slaves of Allah. For a slave, the religion of Mohammed started and ended with slavery.

FP: Can you talk a bit about Islam and sexual slavery?

Warner: All morality in Islam is patterned after the example of Mohammed. Everything that he did and said defines what is permitted or “good”. Mohammed repeatedly sanctioned forced sex (rape) with kafir females after they were captured. The Hadith clearly reports that he got first choice of the women. In one case, he repeatedly demanded one particular woman for himself and swapped two other kafir slave women for his choice. So if Mohammed was involved in the rape of kafirs, then rape is a virtue, not a sin or error.

When Mohammed destroyed the B. Qurayza tribe, all of the adult male Jews were beheaded, so that no husbands were left. Mohammed then took the children and gave them to Muslims to raise as Muslims and he sold off the Jewish women as slaves.

We know from another story that the women were divided into sex slaves and domestic slaves. In one scene, a jihadist is trying to obtain a high ransom for a woman and he is told that her breasts are flat and her mouth is cold, so her value was less. In short, she was only good for work around the house, not in the bedroom.

The Hadith tells of another story where the Muslims used coitus interruptus to avoid impregnating the kafir sex slaves. The reason was purely for business. If the kafir sex slave was pregnant, then she was worth less money.

Islamic doctrine says that kafir women should not be used for prostitutes, only for the pleasure of the master.

When Mohammed attacked the Jews at Khaybar, many moral precedents were set. Sexual slavery received an entire set of rules. Muslims were not to rape pregnant or menstruating women until they had delivered the child or finished their periods. At Khaybar, Mohammed’s god Allah, announced that even married women were fair game for rape.

Mohammed only killed some of the Jews at Khaybar. The male and female survivors were needed to work the land as dhimmis. (The original dhimmis were semi-slaves with no civil rights. Today, dhimmis are ignorant kafirs who apologize for Islam.) Since Islam needed the men to work, husbands were left alive. That was the reason that the Koran said that in this case, even with the husbands looking on, it was good to rape the women.

Sexual slavery was not only fun and profitable for the Muslim men, but rape was a powerful tactic of war, then and today. The women are forced into submission to Muslim men and the husbands are humiliated. Humiliated men are weakened men, so more kafirs were less able to resist Islam.

For some time Mohammed’s favorite sex partner was a Christian slave from Egypt named Mary. One of Mohammed’s wives caught him in some state of intimacy with Mary in the wife’s bedroom and raised hell. Mohammed promised to not do it again and moved Mary to her own apartment in Medina.

Mohammed had received Mary and her sister as gifts. He gave her sister away to a Muslim poet. He was used to giving away sex slaves. He gave several of his top lieutenants kafir sex slaves. Umar, who later became caliph, gave his sex slave to his son. [As an aside, when he was caliph, his son got drunk and Umar beat him to death.]

REST OF THE HISTORY

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/jamie-glazov/islam-slavery-and-rape/print/

STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: “JUST NOT ACCURATE” TO CHARACTERIZE BOKO HARAM AS MUSLIM

Robert Spencer
5/15/2014

More fantasy-based analysis from the Obama Administration.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/05/state-department-official-just-not-accurate-to-characterize-boko-haram-as-muslim

As I explained in this article, in abducting and enslaving the schoolgirls, Boko Haram is operating in accord with widely accepted understandings of the Qur’an and Islamic law. Muslim writers who have claimed that Boko Haram is in violation of the Qur’an have not even mentioned its verses sanctioning sex slavery of captive women. Similarly, here the State Department official, apparently Robert Jackson, flatly asserts that Boko Haram’s philosophy is not Muslim, but doesn’t support his claim. It would be refreshing to see it supported for once, but don’t hold your breath.

“State Dept. Official: ‘Just Not Accurate’ to Characterize Boko Haram as Muslim,” by Bridget Johnson, PJ Media, May 15, 2014 (thanks to Anne Crockett):

A State Department official told a Senate hearing on terrorism in Nigeria this morning that “Boko Haram is trying to portray its philosophy as being a Muslim philosophy, and that’s just not accurate.”

Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs Chairman Chris Coons (D-Del.) referenced a hearing that he held two years ago, in which lawmakers learned that Boko Haram was training with Al-Shabaab and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in an area the size of Texas.

“The hearing that we conducted two years ago could almost literally be repeated today in terms of ongoing structural challenges that have led to this insurgency and have created the conditions and sustained, and in some ways accelerated, the conditions for Boko Haram,” Coons said.

Ambassador Robert Jackson, principal deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs, stood in on the panel of witnesses for Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who was reportedly traveling. Thomas-Greenfield acknowledged to a House panel last November that while Boko Haram has a “religious bent to what they do, they are non-discriminating in their attacks on people.”

“We join the world, the people of Nigeria and the parents of these children in expressing our outrage at Boko Haram’s shocking acts and its perverse ideology,” Jackson said. “This tragic kidnapping calls us to redouble our efforts to defeat a malicious terrorist organization that has troubled Nigeria for more than a decade.”

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) questioned Jackson about whether the administration is properly characterizing the threat.
“Is the prime motivator here of this instance, in your opinion — is the prime motivator the desire to deny young women access to education and empowerment?” Rubio asked.

“Senator, I actually think the prime motivator is to raise more funds for Boko Haram through ransom,” Jackson replied. “However, the fact that Boko Haram opposes Western education is certainly a reason why these girls were targeted.”

“Can I suggest that I think there’s another motivation that’s not getting nearly enough attention, and that is that this is clearly motivated by an anti-Christian attitude of this group,” Rubio continued, citing “a grotesque statement” from Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau: “It is either you are with jahideen, or you’re with the Christians. We know what is happening in this world. It is a jihad war against Christians and Christianity. It is a war against Western education, democracy and constitution… This is what I know in Quran. This is a war against Christians and democracy and their constitution. Allah says we should finish them when we get them.”

“I don’t think there’s any doubt about what’s motivating them,” Rubio said. “One of their leading motivators here is this is not simply — and there’s no doubt that this is a part of it, but this is not just about girls going to school and it’s not just about raising money. There is a strong anti-Christian element of this organization and of this activity. Am I right in saying that?”

“Senator, there is a strong anti-Christian element, but I would offer that more of the thousands of people who have died as a result of Boko Haram’s activities are Muslim than Christian,” Jackson said.

Rubio stressed “we should not ignore the fact that there is a religious persecution aspect of this that is very significant and deserves attention, especially in light of what we are seeing not just in this part of the world but multiple areas of the world, where we are seeing horrifying instances of religious persecution against Christians, which, in my opinion, has been underreported.”

“Senator, I respectfully suggest while anti-Christian sentiment is a strong motivator, the fact of the matter is that Boko Haram is trying to portray its philosophy as being a Muslim philosophy, and that’s just not accurate,” Jackson said.

“I’m not claiming that this is somehow driven by legitimate teachings of Islam. What I’m arguing is that there is a strong anti-Christian element to this and that it is part of a broader anti-Christian persecution that we are seeing repeatedly throughout the world. Would you disagree with that statement?” the senator asked.

“I do not disagree, but I continue to want to emphasize that Boko Haram terrorizes all people,” the State Department official responded.

Jackson said about 85 percent of the more than 200 teens taken from the Chibok secondary school are Christian. Nigeria’s population includes about about 60 million Protestants and 20 million Catholics, according to Pew.
Rubio stressed that a crime against Muslims “is no less worse or less bad than a crime against Christians.”

“What I’m trying to put aside — what I’m trying to put forward here is that we cannot continue to ignore that persecution of Christians is a leading motivator not just of what’s happening in Boko Haram but in other parts of the world, as well, but in this specific instance, they are clearly motivated by anti-Christian attitudes and anti-Christian beliefs,” he said. “And I don’t think that’s even debatable, given their very own statement.”…

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