The US today Monday June 3rd posted up to $23
million in rewards to help track down five leaders of militant groups
accused of spreading terror in west Africa.
The highest reward of $7 million is offered 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.
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 leading to their arrests.
Source: AF
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