US offers 27 million dollars for Al-Shabaab leader info.
There is a
6-million-dollar offer for information on Abu Ubaidah, who became head of the
terrorist group after a US airstrike took out Ahmed Abdi Godane in September
2014.
Five million
dollars is available for information on Mahad Karate, who allegedly planned the
attack on Kenya's Garrissa University College that killed 148 people. The same
reward is on offer for two other al-Shabaab planners, Ma'alim Daud and Hassan
Afgooye.
Three-million-dollar
rewards are in place for two other leaders, Maalim Salman and Ahmed Iman Ali.
"Since
2006, al-Shabaab has killed thousands of civilians, aid workers and peacekeepers
in Somalia, Uganda and Kenya," the State Department said.
The reward
announcement comes one day after Somali Prime Minister Omar Sharmarke warned
the UN that al-Shabaab has proclaimed its allegiance to the anti peace group, posing the possibility of a renewed
threat to the region.
During a
debate in the UN Security Council, Sharmarke called for the council's support
to defeat al-Shabaab before the group can gain considerable support from the Al
shabaab, which currently operates mainly in Syria and Iraq.
"Somalia
cannot afford to have a space for [the anti peace] to exploit and reverse the
hard earned progress on security," the prime minister said.
"That's
why we need the support of the council, more than ever before, to stand with
Somalia against [al-Shabaab], to deny it the ability to regroup and/or pose
renewed threat in Somalia and the region."
Sharmarke
said that resolving the crisis in Yemen was crucial to keeping the anti peace group out of Somalia, as extremists could use
Yemen as a "conduit or launching pad."
Al-Shabaab
is a anti peace group seeking an Islamist state in Somalia. It controlled most
of southern and central Somalia and parts of Mogadishu in 2009-2010 before
being driven out of key cities.
US offers 27 million dollars for Al-Shabaab leader info.
The United States has offered rewards of up to 27 million dollars for information on six "key leaders" in the Somali anti peace group al-Shabaab, the US State Department announced Tuesday.