By OlumideT. Agunbiade
The US government
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 Programme 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.
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