Nigeria's Boko Haram has 4,000-6,000 hardcore militants: US

WASHINGTON: The Islamist militant group Boko Haram, which is fighting a violent insurgency in northeast Nigeria, has about 4,000-6,000 "hardcore" fighters, U.S. intelligence officials said on Friday.

In an assessment of the group, whose five-year uprising including massacres and kidnappings has spread from Nigeria into neighboring states, the officials said they did not believe it posed major threat to Nigeria`s oilfields.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the militants were believed to be still holding 300 schoolgirls they kidnapped last year and had dispersed them to multiple locations.