Boko Haram Kidnaps More Than 300 Students

Nigeria's Boko Haram jihadi rebels have claimed responsibility for the abduction of hundreds of students in one of the largest attacks in years on a boys school in northern Katsina state, per the AP. More than 330 students are missing from the Government Science Secondary School in Kankara after gunmen with assault rifles attacked their school Friday night. The government and the attackers are negotiating over the fate of the boys, according to Nigerian presidential spokesman Garba Shehu. The Daily Nigerian says it received an audio message from Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau saying that his group abducted the schoolboys because Western education is against the tenets of Islam.

"What happened in Katsina was done to promote Islam and discourage un-Islamic practices, as Western education is not the type of education permitted by Allah and his Holy Prophet," the paper quoted Shekau as saying. The kidnapped boys appeared to be teenagers, as the Guardian talked to one 18-year-old who managed to escape capture. This isn't the first time Boko Haram has abducted students from schools. Nigeria's most serious school attack took place in April 2014, when more than 270 schoolgirls were abducted from their dormitory at the Government Secondary School in Chibok in northeastern Borno state. About 100 of the girls are still missing.

(More Boko Haram stories.)