BOKO HARAM: N1bn bounty still on Shekau — US

The United States is still maintaining the $7 million (N1.4 billion) bounty it placed on the leader of the Islamic sect, Boko Haram. The US Department of State on Wednesday issued a list of 71 most-wanted terrorists in the world with bounties totalling $375m (N74.6bn) as “rewards for information that leads to (their) arrest or conviction.” Rewards for Justice, a State Department’s anti- terrorism programme, had first offered the amount as a reward to persons with information on the whereabouts of the Boko Haram leader in June 2013. The President Barack Obama-led administration, in the fresh list, placed a whopping $25 million, the single largest bounty, on Ayman al-Zawahiri, suspected to be one of the doctors and advisors to Osama bin Laden, the late leader of al-Qaeda. Al-Zawahiri is suspected to have played a role in bombing of the US embassy in 1998. Four Islamic State terrorists appeared on the list with a total of $20 million bounty on them. They were Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli ($7 million); IS’s official spokesman, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani ($5 million); Tarkhan Tayumurazovich Batirashvili alias ‘Omar the Chechen’ ($5 million); and Tariq Bin-al-Tahar Bin al Falih al-’Awni al-Harzi ($3 million). A senior leader of the IS, Abu Du’a alias Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi; and al-Zawahiri’s deputy and self- proclaimed leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Nasir al-Wahishi, and four others had $10 million bounty placed on each of them. Shekau was among the three with $7 million bounty. Others were a senior leader of al-Qaeda in Iran, Muhsin al-Fadhli; and Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli. Forty six terrorists had $5 million placed on each of them. They include a founder of Harakat Shabaab al-Mujahidin and a senior leader in al- Shabaab, Ibrahim Haji Jama; an expert in chemical weapons and explosives in al-Qaeda, Ali Sayyid Muhamed Mustafa al-Bakri; and the Operational Commander of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Othman al-Ghamdi. Eleven terrorists, including only two women on the list, have a $3 million on each of them. The women, Zerrin Sari and Seher Demir Sen, are members of a Turkish military/political party and the terrorist group, Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front. The second in command of a radical Ahl-e-Hadith Islamist organisation, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, Hafiz Abdul Rahman Makki; and an explosives expert in the Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin group, Abdullah Nowbahar, have a $2 million bounty on each of them. With a $1 million bounty each were a senior leader of the Abu Sayyaf group based in Philippines, Radullan Sahiron; and an explosives expert in the Abu Sayyaf and the Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist organisations, both in the Philippines, Abdul Basit Usman.