Up to $5m 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 persons, including three Americans, were killed.
A further $5m was offered for top AQIM
leader Yahya Al-Hammam, reportedly involved in the 2010 murder of an
elderly French hostage in Niger Republic.
Malik Abdelkarim, a senior fighter with
AQIM, and Oumar Ould Hamaha, the spokesman for Mali’s Movement for
Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, were also targeted by the rewards
which will give up to $3m each for information leading to their arrests.
The bounties which the Federal
Government described as a welcome development, acknowledged the growing
links between AQIM and Nigeria’s Boko Haram, which is under pressure
from a military offensive.
Shekau had last week called on Islamists
in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq to join the bloody fight to create an
Islamic state in Nigeria.
In a video obtained by AFP last
week, he claimed Boko Haram forces had made significant gains against
the Nigerian Army while sustaining little damage since the start of the
military offensive on May 15.
He highlighted how the group set off
“their first improvised explosive device in early June 2011. By August
(2011) they used a car bomb against the United Nations facility,” an
attack which killed 25 people.
“When we see someone like this who… is
actually leading to an increase in the capability of an organisation,
that’s something that we would naturally try to see if we can do
something to impede,” he added.
Shekau’s whereabouts could not be
determined in the video, in which he was shown seated and dressed in
camouflage and a turban, with an AK-47 at his side.
His comments contradicted statements
from the military, which claimed major successes during the offensive,
including the destruction of Boko Haram camps and dozens of arrests.
Shekau was placed on a US blacklist last
year, but Boko Haram has yet to be designated a foreign terrorist
organisation – an absence which has raised eyebrows among regional
experts.
The US department official also told the AFP
that the “AQIM has been increasingly active in the North and West
Africa. They’re one of the pre-eminent kidnap for ransom groups in the
terrorist world now.”
“They cause us a great deal of concern.
Anything that we can do naturally to cut down on the capabilities of
AQIM, anything that we can do to get information on these people so that
we can get them in front of a court… That is our goal,” he added.
The US 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.
Former colonial power France had led a
military offensive in January against the militants in Mali’s northern
desert. The West African nation prepares for presidential elections on
July 28.
There are fears however that the spread of militant groups risks destabilising the entire West African region.
Belmokhtar, who was a senior commander
for AQIM, broke away from the group last year to set up his own group
dubbed the “Signatories in Blood.”
Branded “the Uncatchable,” Belmokhtar
also personally supervised the operational plans for the twin car
bombings in Niger that killed at least 20 people late last month,
according to a spokesman for his group.
In Abuja, the Federal Government through
the presidential spokesman, Dr. Reuben Abati, said the $7m bounty on
Shekau was a positive development.
“We welcome any effort by the
international community to support Nigeria’s effort at waging war
against terrorism and its perpetrators. What this proves is that
terrorism is a global phenomenon that requires global effort at
combating it. Nigeria believes that the international community needs to
come together to combat terrorism, “ Abati told journalists.
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