The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on the leader of an Islamist militant group in Mali called the Macina Liberation Front, the U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement on its website on Thursday.

The sanctions target Amadou Koufa, a Salafist preacher and leader of the al Qaeda-linked group operating in Central Mali. French officials last year had said the militant leader had died in a raid in the former French colony, but he appeared in a propaganda video in February.

U.S. sanctions block any assets Koufa may have under U.S. control and bars any persons or entities in the United States from any dealings or transactions with him.

U.S. officials in July added two other leaders of an al Qaeda affiliate in Mali to its global terrorism list.

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