KIDNAPPED GIRLS HAVE BEEN CONVERTED - SHEKAU

  A Boko Haram video emerged Monday purportedly showing some of the kidnapped Nigerian girls in Muslim headdresses and the terror group's leader declaring they have converted to Islam.
The video, released by French news agency Agence France-Presse, was shot in a nondescript bush area and showed about 100 girls.

In the 27-minute footage, the terror group's leader, Abubakar Shekau, says he is willing to exchange the schoolgirls for Boko Haram prisoners.

It shows girls dressed in black and gray hijabs, and reciting the Quran as they make Islamic declarations of faith. Shekau appears in a separate part of the video, but never with the girls.

"Praise be to Allah, the lord of the world," the girls in the video chant.

It's the first purported sighting of the girls abducted last month in the northern town of Chibok. A convoy of Islamist militants drove to a school, seized nearly 300 girls and fled into the night.

At least 276 girls remain missing since the terror group abducted them on April 14. Though some of the girls escaped shortly after their abduction, none of the others have been found.