In an unprecedented move, the US has posted $23 million in rewards to help track down five leaders of armed groups active in West Africa, reports Aljazeera.
The highest reward of $7 millionn was offered on Monday for the Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau, who last week called on those sympathetic in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq to join the fight to create an Islamic-governed state in Nigeria.
AJ continues:
The State Department's Rewards for Justice programme also targeted al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), offering its first ever bounties for wanted fighters in West Africa.
Up to $5m was posted for al-Qaeda veteran Mokhtar Belmokhtar, the one-eyed fighter behind the attack on an Algerian gas plant in January in which 37 foreigners, including three Americans, were killed.
A further $5m was offered for Yahya Abou Al-Hammam, senior AQIM leader, 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, spokesperson for Mali's Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), were also targeted with the programme promising up to $3mn each for information leading to their arrests.
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