A video posted on YouTube shows Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau offering to release more than 200 schoolgirls who were abducted a month ago in exchange for imprisoned members.
The leader of the Nigerian Islamist rebel group also shows about 100 girls wearing full veils and praying in the 17-minute long video filmed in an undisclosed location, according to the Associated Press.
Boko Haram militants, who fight for an Islamist state, stormed the secondary school in the northeastern village of Chibok on April 14 and seized the 276 girls who were taking exams, the AP reported. Some managed to escape but about 200 remain missing.
A government official said "all options" were being considered to secure the girls' release, according to the AP.
Nigeria has already deployed two army divisions to hunt for the girls while several nations including the United States, Britain, Israel and France have also offered some sort of assistance, the AP reported.
In the video, Shekau appears confident and is seen laughing in front of at least 100 girls in black and grey veils who can be seen on the ground as they chant, according to the AP. Shekau who is seen wearing military fatigues and holding an AK-47 as he addresses the camera.
"All I am saying is that if you want us to release the girls that we have kidnapped, those who have not accepted Islam will be treated as the Prophet (Mohammed) treated infidels and they will stay with us," Shekau says in the video, according to a translation of his words originally spoken in a Nigerian language, the AP reported.
"We will not release them while you detain our brothers," he adds before naming a series of cities in Nigeria, according to the AP.
Authorities are holding hundreds of suspected Boko Haram militants and there have been several jailbreak attempts, the AP reported. Suspected militants overpowered guards at a prison near the presidential villa in Abuja in March, triggering a gun battle that killed 21 people.
"The government of Nigeria is considering all options towards freeing the girls and reuniting them with their parents," Mike Omeri, a senior official in the Ministry of Information, told a news conference, according to the AP.
