LATEST NEWS OF BOKO HARAM

Boko Haram rebels parade

'liberated' Nigerian girls in propaganda video

The dozens of young women corralled into a clearing to recite the first chapter of the Qur'an, their palms turned upwards in prayer but their collective gaze fixed mainly on the forest floor on which they sit, have, in their captors' words, been "liberated".

Few, though, seem to be relishing their four weeks of freedom. Some shut their eyes tight in concentration or perhaps fear; others fidget, glance about and let the phrase "In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful" emerge through nearly motionless lips.

On Monday, almost a month after they were kidnapped, some of the 276 Nigerian girls snatched from their school under cover of darkness appeared to re-emerge in a propaganda video shot by Boko Haram, the Islamist group that has in recent days acquired the notoriety it has sought for years.

The 27-minute film, stamped with the logo of a pair of crossed Kalashnikovs, a black flag and an open Qur'an, shows around 130 girls wearing grey and black veils. Two of them speak of their conversion from Christianity to Islam.

Against a backdrop of such nervous stillness, Boko Haram's leader, Abubakar Shekau, is even more animated than usual; no mean feat for a man once described as Boko Haram's "craziest" commander.

In the video, Shekau appears nothing short of exultant as he reflects on the kidnapping and the global fury it has stirred.

"These girls; these girls you occupy yourselves with … we have indeed liberated them," he tells the camera with a grin. "These girls have become Muslims. They're Muslims."

Dressed in combat fatigues with a camouflage scarf wrapped around his head and an assault rifle propped against his left shoulder, its long magazine curling across his chest, Shekau berates the Nigerian government for its treatment of the Boko Haram fighters it has captured.

But he also suggests to president Goodluck Jonathan a way out of the deepening crisis. "It's now four or five years since you arrested our brethren and they're still in your prisons and you're doing many things to them," he says – a reference to allegations that the Nigerian military has routinely and brutally violated the human rights of those it suspects of belonging to the group.

"And now you're talking about these girls. We'll never release them until after you release our brothers."

Until that time, Shekau adds, the girls will be treated well - "in the way the Prophet would treat well any infidel he seized".

Asked whether the government intended to reject Shekau's suggested deal, the Nigerian interior minister, Abba Moro, told AFP: "Of course", adding: "The issue in question is not about Boko Haram ... giving conditions."

The video of the captive women - which came a week after Shekau threatened to sell them into marriage "in the market" - was swiftly condemned.

The former British prime minister Gordon Brown, now the UN special envoy for global education, accused Boko Haram of "cruelly and barbarically using 200 kidnapped girls to bargain for the release of prisoners and exploiting innocent young girls for political purposes".

He added: "It is urgent that all religious leaders in every part of the world speak out against their perverted and twisted version of Islam which involves forced conversions and the sale of girls as sex slaves."

After a fortnight in which it was criticised for failing to respond sufficiently quickly or effectively to the mass abduction, Nigeria has begun to accept international help as its forces scour the remote north-eastern reaches of the country for the girls and the men who took them.

The UK, the US and France have already dispatched specialist teams toNigeria to share their expertise, while China has volunteered to share "any useful information acquired by its satellites and intelligence services". On Sunday, a spokesman for Jonathan said the president was pleased to have Israel's "globally acknowledged anti-terrorism expertise deployed to support its ongoing operations".

The prospect of a more multilateral approach to the threat of Boko Haram was raised still further when the French president, François Hollande, said he had invited US and British officials to a summit in Paris this weekend to discuss how to deal with the Islamist group.

"I asked the Americans and British to send a delegation to Paris on Saturday so we can act together and in an efficient way," Hollande told journalists during a visit to the Armenian capital, Yerevan.

According to AFP, the leaders of Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Benin could also attend the event.

At the end of last week, the Nigerian army denied allegations from Amnesty International that it had had four hours' warning that an armed convoy of Boko Haram militants was approaching the town of Chibok, from where the girls were kidnapped shortly before dawn on 15 April. A spokesman dismissed Amnesty's report as a "rumours and allegations", adding: "They just want to give a dog a bad name in order to hang it. Their allegations are unfounded as usual."

The kidnapping of the schoolgirls - and the abduction last week of eight more girls in an overnight raid on another village in Boko Haram's stronghold in north-eastern Borno state - has given rise to a global campaign and led figures including the Pope, the archbishop of Canterbury, David Cameron and Barack and Michelle Obama to call for their release.

On Saturday, the US first lady used her husband's weekly video address to her anger over the abductions.

"Like millions of people across the globe, my husband and I are outraged and heartbroken over the kidnapping of more than 200 Nigerian girls from their school dormitory in the middle of the night," she said.

"This unconscionable act was committed by a terrorist group determined to keep these girls from getting an education – grown men attempting to snuff out the aspirations of young girls."