The terrorist group Boko Haram released a chilling new video showing some of the girls the group kidnapped from a school in northeastern Nigeria.  Dressed in gray and black full length veils, the girls appear frightened as they’re clearly coerced to read verses from the Koran in Arabic.

“I swear to almighty Allah, you will not see them again until you release our people that you have captured,” Boko Haram’s smirking leader Abubakar Shekau says as he cradles an assault rifle in the video.  Whether that’s a taunt or a legitimate overture to negotiations isn’t clear.  But Nigeria instantly rejected the demand to free any imprisoned militants.

Boko Haram also says some of the girls converted to the violent cult’s radical interpretation of Islam, although their faces belie that claim.  It’s also not clear how many of the girls – who are mostly Christian – can even understand Arabic. 

The video shows about 100 girls, bolstering reports that the abducted schoolgirls may have been broken up into smaller groups.  It’s feared that some have been taken across borders to Chad and Cameroon.