How Boko Haram operate largely outside banking system

 Boko Haram beat U.S. efforts to choke its financing

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When Washington imposed sanctions in June 2012 on Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau, he dismissed it as an empty gesture.

Two years later, Shekau’s skepticism appears well founded: his Islamic militant group is now the biggest security threat to Africa's top oil producer, is richer than ever, more violent and its abductions of women and children continue with impunity.

As the United States, Nigeria and others struggle to track and choke off its funding, Reuters interviews with more than a dozen current and former U.S. officials who closely follow Boko Haram provide the most complete picture to date of how the group finances its activities.

CONFIRMED: Jonathan received new video of abducted girls begging for their lives

The Presidency yesterday confirmed receiving a new video showing the abducted Chibok schoolgirls begging for their lives. 

The Girls were seen pleading with President Jonathan to help rescue them from their Boko Haram captors. 

Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, made the confirmation in an interview with CNN aired last night. 

The British newspaper Mail on Sunday had reported that the video was delivered to the Presidency by a Boko Haram intermediary as “proof of life” for the girls and to encourage the President to accede to the sect’s demands. 

BOKO HARAM, JON STEWART AND RUSH LIMBAUGH

Jon Stewart managed to find a way to do serious comedy Monday with a segment on the kidnapping of Nigerian girls by Boko Haram, an act which even al Qaeda has condemned. “You know, there’s not a lot of times you’re going to get a Jewish guy to go, ‘I agree with al Qaeda.’ But wow … the group that never saw something full of civilians it didn’t want to blow up is saying ‘Take it down a notch.” 

Stewart introduces us to Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau, the “soulless, forest-dwelling lunatic” who nonetheless seems to know about the importance of dental hygiene, and to Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, whose name just happens to sound like someone telling him that he’s leading “a corrupt country overrun with nutbag terrorists … Goodluck, Jonathan.”

New Video From Boko Haram Emerged With Chibok School Girls Wearing Islamic Hijab Headdress

The Boko Haram Leader Abubakar Shekau in a  27-minute video showing some girls all wearing hijab has been released by Boko Haram says the CNN.

They are suspected to be the girls kidnapped from Chibok nearly a month ago. 

The girls were also seen reciting verses from the Quran, the CNN said, suggesting that they have been converted to Islam.