US imposes sanction on factional Boko Haram leader

The United States treasury department has included Abu Musab Al-Barnawi, factional leader of Boko Haram, to its sanctions list for global terrorism. Al-Barnawi’s group is suspected of being behind the abduction of female students from Dapchi, a town in Yobe state.

On Tuesday, the treasury’s office of foreign assets control (OFAC) said two individuals and seven organisations in Africa and Asia have been included in the list. In August 2016, the Islamic State announced Al-Barnawi as the new leader of Boko Haram.

According to The Cable, OFAC said the seven groups also added to the list are from Bangladesh, Egypt, the Philippines, Somalia, and Tunisia. It listed them as ISIS-Bangladesh, ISIS-Egypt, ISIS-Philippines, ISIS-Somalia, ISIS-West Africa, Jund al-Khilafah-Tunisia, also known as ISIS-Tunisia, and Islamic State of Lanao, in the Philippines.

In a separate statement, the US State Department said it has also designated 40 Islamic State leaders and operatives dating back to 2011 under an order aimed at denying them access to the US financial system.

“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,” the statement read. The department said the move is aimed at “destroying ISIS in its safe havens, denying its ability to recruit foreign terrorist fighters, and stifling its financial resources”.

It added that it would also help in “negating the false propaganda it (ISIS) disseminates over the internet and social media, and helping to stabilise liberated areas in Iraq and Syria so the displaced can rebuild their lives”.

In 2017, Islamic State fighters were driven from all their strongholds in both Syria and Iraq, but the group is believed to still be capable of carrying out an insurgency and plotting attacks elsewhere.