US doubles bounty on Daesh/ISIS leader to $10M

By Michael Hernandez

WASHINGTON (AA) - The US increased a reward Wednesday for the top leader of the Daesh/ISIS terror group, doubling its payout for information on its self-styled emir to $10 million.

The State Department announced a $5 million reward in August for information that leads to the identification or location of Amir Muhammad Sa’id Abdal-Rahma al-Mawla.

Al-Mawla is also known as Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurash, Hajji Abdallah and Abu-Umar al-Turkman.

He succeeded Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to lead the terror organization less than a week after Baghdadi was killed in a US operation in northern Syria in October.

Al-Mawla oversees Daesh/ISIS' global operations after helping to "justify the abduction, slaughter, and trafficking of members of Yazidi religious minority groups in northwest Iraq," the State Department said.

He was previously a religious scholar in the terror group that preceded Daesh/ISIS, al-Qaeda in Iraq, before becoming deputy leader of the terror group under Baghdadi.

He was designated a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the State Department in March.