The United States has offered a reward of $5 million for any information that could lead to the arrest of Musa Baluku, the leader of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a deadly terrorist group affiliated to the Islamic State (IS), which operates in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
Announcing the bounty in a statement on Thursday, the American embassy in Kinshasa said the money came from the US Reward forJustice (RFJ) program.
“The United States Department of State’s Rewards for Justice (RFJ) program, offers a reward of up to $5 million for information that may lead to the identification or location of the leader of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF),” the embassy said.
“Under the command of Baluku, this organization continues to kill, maim, rape and abduct civilians including children.”
“In 2021, the State Department designated Baluku as a ‘Specifically Designated Global Terrorist’, and the ADF as a terrorist organization,” the statement reads.
The ADF militia group, originally a group made up of mainly Muslim Ugandan rebels, was formed in the mid-1990s in the eastern DRC, and has been accused of carying out the massacre of thousands of civilians in the troubled region.
Their leader, Baluku who is of Ugandan nationality, was born in 1975 or 1976, according to the US State Department.
In 2019, he made a declaration of allegiance to IS, which now presents the ADF as its branch in Central Africa.
In 2021, the group carried out deadly attacks on Ugandan soil where thousands were killed. The group is also credited with launching deadly offensives against the Congolese and Ugandan armies in the Congolese provinces of North Kivu and Ituri.