US offers R720m for info leading to arrest of Al-Shabaab leaders
The United States has a bounty on three Al-Shabaab leaders who are linked to fundraising and financing for the terrorist outfit’s operations in Kenya, Somalia and other parts of the Sahel region.
The US Department of State’s Rewards for Justice (RFJ) programme, administered by the Diplomatic Security Service, “offers up to $10 million (about R180 million) each for information leading to the identification or location of Al-Shabaab key leaders, Ahmed Diriye, Mahad Karate and Jehad Mostafa.” Another R180 million is being offered to anyone who can help with information that leads to the disruption of the organisation’s financial mechanisms.
This is the first time the US has put up a monetary incentive for information on Al-Shabaab’s fundraising and financial facilitation networks.
“Al-Shabaab is al-Qaeda’s principal affiliate in East Africa. Al-Shabaab is responsible for numerous terrorist attacks in Somalia, Kenya, and neighbouring countries that have killed thousands of people, including US citizens.
“The Department of State designated Al-Shabaab as a foreign terrorist organisation (FTO) and specially designated global terrorist (SDGT) in March 2008. In April 2010, Al-Shabaab was also designated by the UNSC’s Somalia Sanctions Committee, under Paragraph 8 of Resolution 1844 (2008),” RFJ said in a statement.
Diriye, who has been a senior Al-Shabaab leader since 2014, was flagged by RFJ in 2015.
He was last seen in a video meeting with Al-Shabaab fighters, before the January 2020 attack on Camp Simba in Manda Bay, Kenya.
A US Army soldier and two US contract personnel were killed in the attack. Three additional US personnel and one Kenyan soldier were wounded.
Karate has also been on the wanted list since 2015. He is the deputy leader of the terrorist organisation and is actively involved in some of the terror attacks.
His RFJ profile reads:
Karate maintains some command responsibility over Amniyat, Al-Shabaab’s intelligence and security wing, which oversees suicide attacks and assassinations in Somalia, Kenya, and other countries in the region, and provides logistics and support for Al-Shabaab’s terrorist activities.
Mostafa is an American citizen from California. He has served as a military instructor at the terrorist outfit’s training camps and is “a leader in Al-Shabaab’s media wing, an intermediary between Al-Shabaab and other terrorist organisations, and a leader in Al-Shabaab’s use of explosives in terrorist attacks.”
Source: News24
