The Obama administration is to offer up to $33 million (€26 million) in rewards for information about top members of an Islamist extremist group in Somalia linked to al-Qaeda.
The rewards for the leaders of the al-Shabab militia movement will be announced by the US state department today.
The bounties will be administered by the department’s Rewards for Justice programme, the first time the programme has offered rewards for members of al-Shabab, which is accused of terrorist attacks in Somalia, Uganda and Kenya.
The programme will offer up to $7 million for al-Shabab’s founder Ahmed Abdi aw-Mohamed; up to $5 million each for his associates Ibrahim Haji Jama, Fuad Mohamed Khalaf, Bashir Mohamed Mahamoud and Mukhtar Robow; and up to $3 million for two other top members, Zakariya Ismail Ahmed Hersi and Abdullahi Yare.
Al-Shabab and al-Qaeda linked formally earlier this year, though the ties between the groups were already strong.
Al-Shabab counts hundreds of foreign fighters among its ranks, including those with experience in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
In April the US government warned that it continued to receive information about potential terrorist threats aimed at US, Western and Kenyan targets located inside Kenya.
AP
