the
United States Government yesterday, placed about twenty-three million dollars
reward for information leading to the arrest of five leaders of militant groups
accused of spreading terror in West Africa.
The highest reward of $7 million
was put forward for the Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, who last week
called on Islamists in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq to join the bloody fight
to create an Islamic state in Nigeria.
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| ABUBAKAR SHEKAU |
The US State Department’s Rewards
for Justice program also targeted Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, (AQIM) offering
its first ever bounties for wanted militants in west Africa.
Up to $5 million was posted for
Al-Qaeda veteran Mokhtar Belmokhtar, the one-eyed Islamist behind the
devastating attack on an Algerian gas plant in January in which 37 foreigners,
including three Americans, were killed.
A further $5 million was offered
for top AQIM leader, Yahya Abou Al-Hammam, reportedly involved in the 2010
murder of an elderly French hostage in Niger.
Malik Abou Abdelkarim, a senior
fighter with AQIM, and Oumar Ould Hamaha, the spokesman for Mali’s Movement for
Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), were also targeted by the rewards
program, which will give up to $3 million each for information
The United
States has been increasingly worried about the spread of Islamist groups in
Mali and across the vast and lawless Sahel since a military coup ousted the
government in Bamako.
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