LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) - Looking sad and frightened, dozens of barefoot girls sat huddled together wearing gray Muslim veils as they chanted Quranic verses in Arabic. Some Christians among them said they had converted to Islam.
In the video released Monday, the Boko Haram terrorist network offered the first public glimpse of what it claimed were some of the nearly 300 girls kidnapped from a Nigerian school a month ago - and issued an ominous threat. The girls will not be seen again, the group's leader said menacingly, until the government frees his imprisoned fighters.
"I swear to almighty Allah, you will not see them again until you release our brothers that you have captured," Abubakar Shekau warned, an assault rifle clasped against his chest.
It is not known how many suspected Boko Haram members are detained by security forces. Hundreds were killed last month when Shekau's fighters stormed the military's main northeastern barracks in Maiduguri, the birthplace of Boko Haram and the headquarters of a year-old military state of emergency to put down the 5-year-old Islamic uprising.
In the video, two of the girls were singled out for questioning.
"Why have you become a Muslim?" one girl, who looked to be in her early teens, was asked.
"The reason why I became a Muslim is because the path we are on is not the right path," the girl said, nervously shifting her body from side to side, her eyes darting back and forth.
"We should enter the right path so that Allah will be happy with us," added the girl, who said her name had been changed to Halima because she had converted from Christianity to Islam.
Like the other girls, she wore a bulky gray hijab that covered her body from head to toe, revealing only her face.
A second girl, who appeared to be in her mid-teens, was asked if she or any of the others had been mistreated. No, she said, adding that they had experienced nothing "except righteousness."
As the girls chanted Islamic verses, some clasped their hands together in what appeared to be the Christian style of prayer before quickly turning their palms upward, as Muslim worshippers do.
The girls' families have said most of those seized April 15 from a school in the northeastern town of Chibok are Christians.
It was impossible to fully authenticate the video, though parents were trying to turn on a generator in Chibok, hoping to watch the video and identify their daughters, said a town leader, Pogu Bitrus.
The video showed about 100 girls, indicating they may have been broken up into smaller groups as some reports have indicated.
Fifty-three girls managed to escape and 276 remain missing, police say.
Meanwhile, a U.S. team in Nigeria assisting the government in its search for the girls is made up of nearly 30 people drawn from the State and Defense departments, as well as the FBI.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said the team includes five State Department officials, including a team leader, two strategic communications experts, a civil security expert and a regional medical support officer. Four FBI officials with expertise in safe recovery, negotiations and preventing future kidnappings are also part of the group.
The Pentagon said 16 Defense Department personnel are on the team, including planners and advisers who were already in Nigeria and have been redirected to assist the government. Also on the team are DoD personnel who were sent to Nigeria from AFRICOM, the U.S. Africa Command based in Germany.