The United States ratcheted up
pressure on the leaders of the Islamic State jihadist group on Tuesday,
adding four names to those targeted by multi-million-dollar bounties.
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The IS group has seized a wide stretch
of eastern Syria and northern Iraq and declared it a "caliphate," within
which it has enslaved female captives, carried out sectarian massacres
and murdered hostages.
Iraqi and Kurdish security forces are
fighting back, supported by Iranian advisors and a US-led air coalition,
but IS is holding on in its heartland and allied groups have sprung up
as far away as Libya and Nigeria.
Tuesday's statement from the State
Department adds four names to the list of high-value US targets sought
by the "Rewards for Justice Program."
The militant with the largest price --
$7 million (6.25 million euros) -- on his head is Abdel Rahman Mustafa
al-Qaduli, who was designated a global terrorist for the purpose of US
Treasury sanctions in May last year.
The State Department alleged that he had
been a deputy to the late leader of Al-Qaeda's Iraqi faction, Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi, and had travelled to Syria to join the IS group in 2012
after he was freed from an Iraqi jail.
The US Treasury lists Qaduli as an Iraqi, born in either 1957 or 1959 in the city of Mosul.
A Syrian militant, Abu Mohammed
al-Adnani, whose birth name is Taha Sobhi Falaha and who is
approximately 38 years old, is now subject to a five-million-dollar
reward for information leading to his death or capture.
The statement describes him as an IS spokesman who has repeatedly called for attacks on the United States.
Tarkhan Batirashvili, better known under
his Arabic nom de guerre as Omar al-Shishani, is also under a
five-million-dollar reward.
The 29-year-old Georgian is accused of
overseeing a prison outside the IS stronghold of Raqa where several
foreign hostages were held.
There is a three-million-dollar bounty on the head of Tariq bin al-Tahar bin al-Falih al-Awni al-Harzi, a 33-year-old Tunisian.
He is accused of acting as an IS
fundraiser in the Gulf states and later as a field commander in Syria
and as head of a unit of suicide bombers.
The Iraqi leader of the Islamic State
group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was already the subject of a $10-million
reward under the program.
Source: AFP
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