Boko Haram's leader has urged his fighters to "kill, slaughter and abduct ... and detonate bombs everywhere" in a new video which denies Nigerian government claims that his Islamic extremist group has been crushed.

Nigerian officials prevented kidnapped girls freed from more than two years of captivity by Boko Haram Islamic extremists from spending Christmas at home with their families, according to a lawyer.

The Boko Haram extremist group has been driven from its last forest stronghold with fighters on the run and nowhere to hide, Nigeria's president said.

Boko Haram fighters are overrunning villages near the Nigerian town of Chibok, forcing hundreds of people to flee as they loot and burn in the area, local leaders have said.

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A second girl believed to be among those kidnapped by Islamic extremists from a school in Nigeria has been rescued, the military said.

The first kidnapped schoolgirl to escape from Islamic extremist group Boko Haram’s stronghold in the Sambisa Forest has been flown to Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, to meet the country’s president.

The first of more than 200 schoolgirls missing for over two years after they were kidnapped by Boko Haram militants in Chibok in northeast Nigeria has been found, a parents group and local officials said.

Nigerian troops have driven Boko Haram extremists out of an abandoned north-eastern primary school in a shootout that killed four militants.

Islamic extremist group Boko Haram killed 56 villagers in a remote area of Nigeria, the governor of Borno State said today.

Nigerian troops have rescued 178 people from Boko Haram in attacks that destroyed several of the Islamic extremist group’s camps in the north east, according to the army.

Nigeria’s Boko Haram extremists are offering to free more than 200 young women and girls kidnapped from a boarding school in the town of Chibok in exchange for the release of militant leaders held by the government, a human rights activist said.

Boko Haram fighters killed older boys and men in front of their families before taking women and children into the forest where many died of hunger and disease, freed captives said yesterday after they were brought to a government refugee camp.

After carrying out a mass rescue of 200 girls and 93 women from the forest stronghold of an Islamic insurgent group, Nigeria’s military is evacuating the females and plans to check their physical and mental health, an army spokesman has said.

The Nigerian army said it could not confirm if any of the 300 women and girls freed from a Boko Haram stronghold are the schoolgirls kidnapped a year ago.

On the first anniversary of the kidnapping by Islamic extremists of hundreds of girls from a school in northeast Nigeria, president-elect Muhammadu Buhari said he cannot promise to find the 219 who are still missing.

Suspected Boko Haram fighters killed at least 34 and injured several others in attacks on villages near Chibok and Konduga in Nigeria’s northeastern Borno state earlier this week, according to residents and local officials.

Nobel prizewinner Malala Yousafzai has called on world leaders to do more to free hundreds of Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped 300 days ago.

Youths angry at the Nigerian government’s failure to fight Islamic extremists threw stones at President Goodluck Jonathan’s convoy in the eastern town of Jalingo, breaking windscreens and windows on several vehicles.

Islamic extremist group Boko Haram has seized the Nigerian town of Chibok from which the insurgents kidnapped nearly 300 schoolgirls in April.

A wave of violence hours after Nigeria’s government announced a truce with Boko Haram raised doubts yesterday about whether more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped by the Islamist militants will be released, deflating the hopes of their parents.

People in the home town of more than 200 kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls are cautiously optimistic about a ceasefire with the Islamic extremists who abducted their daughters six months ago.

Nigeria’s government said Islamic extremists from Boko Haram have agreed to an immediate ceasefire.

Nigeria’s government and Islamic extremists from Boko Haram have agreed to an immediate ceasefire.

Twelve soldiers fighting an Islamic insurgency in Nigeria have been sentenced to death by firing squad for mutiny and attempted murder of their commanding officer.

Pakistani rights activist Malala Yousafzai, who survived being shot in the head by the Taliban for campaigning for girls’ education, has pledged while on a trip to Nigeria to help free a group of schoolgirls abducted by Islamist militants.

Boko Haram militants dressed as soldiers slaughtered at least 200 civilians in three villages in north-eastern Nigeria and the military failed to intervene even though it was warned that an attack was imminent, witnesses said.

Residents in a village in Nigeria from where more than 300 schoolgirls were kidnapped have criticised the country's president for not turning up on a planned visit.

Villagers in an area of Nigeria where Boko Haram operates have killed and detained scores of extremist Islamic militants suspected of planning a fresh attack.

Villagers in an area of Nigeria where Boko Haram operates have killed and detained scores of the Islamic militants who were suspected of planning a fresh attack, residents and a security official said.

A new video from Nigeria’s Boko Haram terrorist network purports to show dozens of abducted schoolgirls, covered in jihab and praying in Arabic.

A new video issued by Boko Haram in the past hour claims to show some of the nearly 300 schoolgirls missing in Nigeria.

Islamic extremists blew up a bridge, killed an unknown number of people, and abducted the wife and children of a retired police officer in north-east Nigeria over the weekend as as an international effort got underway to rescue 276 schoolgirls kidnapped by the militants.

One of the teenagers who escaped from Islamic extremists who abducted more than 300 schoolgirls says the kidnapping was “too terrifying for words”, and she’s scared to go back to school.

It is understood the search for 276 schoolgirls kidnapped in Nigeria is closing in on a forest near the eastern border.

Nigeria’s military had four hours’ advanced warning of the April 14 attack by Boko Haram that led to the kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls but failed to take immediate action, Amnesty International said.

Nigerian security officials failed to act on a warning about a militant group’s raid on a boarding school that led to the abduction of more than 300 girls, Amnesty International says.

American officials have arrived in Nigeria to help look for more than 200 kidnapped schoolgirls.

Islamic militants who prompted global outrage over the kidnapping of more than 270 schoolgirls have opened fire on a busy marketplace, killing hundreds in a new spasm of violence in Nigeria’s north-east.

Scores of girls and young women kidnapped from a school in Nigeria are being forced to marry their Islamic extremist abductors, a civil society group claims.

Some 234 girls are missing from a Nigerian school attacked last week by Islamic extremists – significantly more than the 85 reported by education officials, parents told the state governor today.

Suspected Islamic extremists have abducted about 100 female students from a school in north-east Nigeria, officials said.