The United States doubled the reward to catch the leader of "Islamic State"
The US State Department announced on the 24th that it has doubled the amount of the bounty for Amir Mohammed Abdul Rahman Maori, the supreme leader of the extreme group "Islamic State", from US$5 million to US$10 million.
Maori was born in a Turkmen family in Iraq. He was one of the founders of "Islamic State" and belonged to a minority of non-Arab seniors. He was arrested by U.S. forces in Iraq in 2004 and held in the Buka camp prison in southern Iraq, where he is believed to be acquainted with the former leader of the "Islamic State" Abu Bakr Baghdadi. Māori later became the core decision-making figure of the "Islamic State", having organized and directed operations in many places around the world. After Baghdadi was killed by US special forces in Syria in October last year, Māori came to power.
The British "Guardian" reported that the intelligence agencies of the United States and other countries are not clear about where Maori is hiding. Intelligence personnel speculated that Maori was unlikely to go to Syria with Baghdadi, and was more likely to remain in the west of Mosul, Iraq.
Since March 2019, the "Islamic State" has lost ground in Syria and Iraq, and has switched to guerrilla tactics to launch attacks from time to time. Many people warned that the threat of this extremist group still exists, and it is still possible to make a comeback.
It is worth noting that with the successive deaths of senior leaders of the "Islamic State", the new leadership of this extremist organization is almost entirely "inexperienced young people", and Maori is one of the few veteran figures. (Liu Jiang)【Xinhua News Agency Micro Feature】