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Treasury Department Will Sanction Nigerian Islamist Group, Says Counterterrorism Official

By Colby Adams

The U.S. Treasury Department is in the final stages of levying banking sanctions against members of the Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram, a U.S. counterterrorist financing official said Tuesday. The pending sanctions against the organization, whose name translates to "Western education is sacrilege," follow the August 2011 suicide bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Abuja and a string of attacks on Christmas Eve against churches in the Nigerian capital. In response, U.S. officials will order financial institutions to identify and freeze the terror group's assets, said J. Chris Warrener, chief of the FBI's Terrorist Financing Operations Section, Division 13,...

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