The intrepid mujahedin, still going after those really hard targets. On the other hand, though, “Boko Haram” does translate as “Western education is sacrilege,” so they really are just living up to their name.
Jihad causes poverty. “Gunmen burn schools in restive Nigerian city: official,” from the Daily Star, February 24 (thanks to Twostellas):
KANO, Nigeria: Gunmen burnt down a school in Nigeria’s troubled city of Maiduguri, the second such attack in two days in an area rocked by Boko Haram Islamist raids, an official said Thursday.
A group of unknown gunmen stormed Budun primary school in central Maiduguri Wednesday evening and set fire to classrooms and a store after seizing the security guard at gunpoint, according to state education commissioner, Tijjani Abba Ari.
“The gunmen held the security guard at gunpoint and set fire to a block of four classes and an adjoining store which gutted the whole block,” he said.
Another school was also burnt down by gunmen late Tuesday, Ari said.
“We are dealing with an emerging trend that is quite disturbing because this is the second time in two days that a school was burnt by armed arsonists,” Ari said.
No one was hurt in the incident but the arson created panic in the city with pupils staying away from schools on Thursday, he said.
Ari did not name suspects in the arson but the radical Islamist Boko Haram group, which opposes western-type education, had threatened to attack public schools in retaliation for alleged desecration of the Koran and a raid on an Islamic seminary in the city by security agents.
Sect leader Abubakar Shekau issued the threat last month in an audio message in which his group claimed responsibility for a January 20 attack in the northern city of Kano that killed 185 people.