U.S. places new sanctions on Boko Haram, leader

The United States government has imposed new sanctions on the terror group, 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, also known 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 ISIL.

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 that, 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 the 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, involving 110 secondary schoolgirls kidnapped from their dormitory in Dapchi, Yobe State.