The government of the United States of America hasplaced new sanctions on Boko Haram and its factional leader, Mus’ab al-Barnawi.
The new sanctions by the U.S. Treasury Department targets the Islamic State and its affiliate networks around the world.
The U.S. department added Boko Haram, popularly refered to as ISIS-West Africa, to the sanction list for global terrorism.
Mr. al-Barnawi and Mahad Moalim from Somalia and seven organisations
in Africa and Asia, linked to Islamic state (ISIS), were added to the
list.
Mr. al-Barnawi was the spokesperson for Boko Haram before the group pledged allegiance to ISIS.
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said the additions
include ISIS-Philippines, ISIS-Bangladesh, ISIS-West Africa, ISIS-Egypt,
ISIS-Somalia, Jund al-Khilafah-Tunisia, also known as ISIS-Tunisia, and
the Philippines-based Maute Group, also known as Islamic State of
Lanao.
Reuters reports that the U.S. State Department, in a separate
statement, said that it had designated 40 Islamic State leaders and
operatives dating back to 2011 under an order aimed at denying them
access to the U.S. financial system, including the latest additions.
“These designations are part of a larger comprehensive plan to defeat
ISIS in coordination with the 75-member Global Coalition to
Defeat ISIS, has made significant progress toward that goal.
“This effort is destroying ISIS in its safe havens, denying its
ability to recruit foreign terrorist fighters, stifling its financial
resources, negating the false propaganda it disseminates over the
internet and social media, and helping to stabilise liberated areas in
Iraq and Syria so the displaced can return to their homes and begin to
rebuild their lives,” the statement added.
Islamic State fighters were driven last year from all the population
centres they occupied in both Syria and Iraq, but Washington still
considers them a threat, capable of carrying out an insurgency and
plotting attacks elsewhere, Reuters reported.
In Nigeria Boko Haram has remained a threat despite government’s claim the group has been defeated.
Boko Haram fighters have continued to carry out deadly attacks and abductions — although on a reduced scale.
The group is believed to be responsible for the latest of such
abductions last week which involved 110 secondary schoolgirls kidnapped from
their dormitory in Dapchi, Yobe State.