The United States designated three leaders of the Boko Haram militant group as terrorists Thursday in a bid to stem the violence in Nigeria, which has endured a series of deadly attacks.
The three named by the State Department were Abubakar Shekau, widely believed to lead Boko Haram’s main Islamist cell, Abubakar Adam Kambar and Khalid al-Barnawi.
But the US stopped short of putting the group as a whole on its terror list.
“In the last 18 months, Boko Haram or associated militants have killed more than 1,000 people,” the State Department said in a statement, adding that Shekau was the most visible of the group’s leaders.
The two other men were accused of close links to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which has been designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the United States.
