Boko Haram terrorist group launched a number of attacks on three villages in northeast Nigeria, killing at least 43 people, Al Bawaba News reported Friday. Eyewitnesses said that dozens of Boko Haram extremists, on motorcycles, attacked Matangala, Boraltama and Dermanti villages in Borno State, opening fire on the residents and burning their houses. Boko Haram, a Nigerian Salafist jihadi group, was founded in January 2002 by Mohammed Yusuf, in an attempt to apply the Islamic law (Sharia) on all the states of Nigeria. The group is currently led by Abubakar Shekau. The group, also known as Nigeria's Taliban, was formed by Nigerian students who had given up their education to establish their base in the northeast of the country, along the border with Niger. Boko Haram has carried out several brutal attacks against civilians in Nigeria, including the recent kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls in 2014. It has pledged in March its allegiance to the Islamic State jihadist group, through an audio tape released on the group's Twitter account.
