Suspected Islamists burn down seven Nigerian schools
By REUTERS
MAIDUGURI, Nigeria - Arsonists suspected to be members of Islamist sect Boko Haram have burned down seven schools in northeastern Nigeria the past few days, authorities said on Thursday, a new twist in the group's increasingly violent insurgency.Thousands of children have been left without schools in the middle of their term.Boko Haram, an Islamist movement styled on the Taliban, is waging a low level insurgency against the government that is radiating out from its heartland in the remote northeastern city of Maiduguri right across the north.Its name means "Western education is sinful", after the ant-Western teachings of its early spiritual leader Mohammed Yusuf, who was killed in police custody in 2009.Musa Inuwa Kubo, the commissioner of education for Borno state, of which Maiduguri is the capital, said the schools were attacked over the past few days, two of them on Thursday.
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