Title: Who are Boko Haram? | The Independent | The Independent
Headings: Who are Boko Haram?
Who are Boko Haram?
What you need to know about the group that kidnapped 276 school girls in Nigeria
What is Boko Haram?
Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau (AFP)
What is the current situation?
Is this the first time such an attack has taken place?
Why is Boko Haram’s insurgency suddenly attracting so much attention?
What is the #bring back our girls hashtag and how did it start?
How has it made an impact?
Why are world leaders becoming involved?

Content: Boko Haram is a militant Islamist group based in the northeast of Nigeria, north Cameroon and Niger. The group's official name is Jama'atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda'awati wal-Jihad, which in Arabic translates as: " People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet's Teachings and Jihad". Founded in 2001 by Mohammed Yusuf, Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is forbidden" in the local Hausa language, began their insurgency in 2009 in Nigeria’s Borno state. Now led by Abubakar Shekau after Yusuf was killed in 2009, the group is fighting to overthrow the government in order to create an Islamic state and promotes a version of Islam which makes it “haram” for Muslims to partake in political or social activity associated with Western society. Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau (AFP)
Since its insurgency began, Boko Haram has carried out increasingly deadly attacks on schools, pupils and teachers in the mainly Muslim north of Nigeria. What is the current situation? On 14 April, 276 girls aged between 16 and 18 were kidnapped from the Government Girls Secondary School in rural Chibok, in the north-eastern Borno state. Boko Haram later claimed responsibility for the abductions in a video, where Shekau threatened to sell the girls as slaves and marry them off because God had "instructed" him to sell them. " They are his properties," he said, "and I will carry out his instructions.”