US intelligence: Nigeria's Boko Haram has 4,000-6,000 hardcore militants
The Islamist militant group Boko Haram, which is fighting a violent insurgency in northeast Nigeria, has about 4,000-6,000 "hardcore" fighters, US intelligence officials said on Friday. In an assessment of the group, whose five-year uprising including massacres and kidnappings has spread from Nigeria into neighboring states, the officials said they did not believe it posed major threat to Nigeria's oilfields.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the militants were believed to be still holding 300 schoolgirls they kidnapped last year and had dispersed them to multiple locations.
