US slams new sanctions on factional Boko Haram leader, Al Barnawi
The United States of America Government has imposed 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, also known as ISIS-West Africa, to the sanction list for global terrorism.
Al-Barnawi, who was the spokesperson for Boko Haram before the group pledged allegiance to ISIL, and Mahad Moalim from Somalia and seven organisations in Africa and Asia, linked to Islamic state (ISIS), were added to the list.
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.
Meanwhile, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to visit Dapchi in Yobe State, where Boko Haram kidnapped 110 girls from Government Girls Secondary and Technical School on February 19.
The PDP urged Buhari to go to Dapchi so as to get first hand information on the circumstances surrounding the incident.
The party also added that Buhari’s visit to Dapchi, who it accused of feasting in Aso Rock with chieftains of his ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), while parents of the abducted girls are wailing, will bridge the gap between him and Nigerians.
In a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, the opposition party said Buhari has reneged on his promise, prior to his election as president, to lead the fight against insurgency in the country, from the front.
It added that Nigerians are worried that president Buhari has allowed himself to be “holed” in the fortress of Aso Rock while citizens are either killed or taken captive by bandits and insurgents.
“Most appalling is the fact that while the parents of our 110 abducted Dapchi daughters are still wailing and insurgents driving into deeper recesses, the president and his partymen are busy feasting in the presidential villa and plotting their 2019 campaigns; of course, with funds meant for the wellbeing of the people and our nation…
“We, therefore, plead with president Buhari to show leadership by immediately calling off his feasting in the presidential villa and take that bold step to visit Dapchi, where a soothing word from him will be a balm for the distraught community.”
