On 3 June 2013, the US State Department's Rewards for Justice program announced a $3 million bounty for information leading to Ould Hamaha's arrest. The State Department also announced a $5 million bounty for Belmokhtar's arrest.[9] In March 2014, Malian military sources reported that Ould Hamaha had been killed in a shootout with French forces in northeastern Mali.[10] A month later, a spokesman for Al-Mourabitoun denied Hamaha was killed.[11][12] Despite this denial of Hamaha's death, the Rewards for Justice program removed him from the list in May 2014.[13] AQIM officially confirmed Hamaha's death in February 2016.[14]