The United States has doubled the reward money for the current leader of the Islamic State to $10 million after he was identified as the successor of the slain Baghdadi. The US had previously offered $5 million for Amir Mohammed Abdul Rahman al-Mawli before he was identified as the successor.
Al-Mawli was born in 1976 in the Iraqi city of Mosul to a Turkmen family, making him one of the few non-Arabs to ascend the ranks of the Islamic State group, which at its height ruled vast parts of Iraq and Syria and drew volunteers from the West.
The initial bounty on the Scholar in Islamic law was due to his role in the persecution of the Yazidi minority, a campaign that the United Nations has described as genocide. The jihadists killed thousands of Yazidis, who practice an ancient religion, and abducted and enslaved thousands more women and girls as they rampaged across the Middle East.
This comes as the group continues to lose its territory in the Middle East while at the same time appearing to re-establish itself in parts of Africa. ISIS-Central has been claiming attacks conducted by groups in Mozambique, DRC, Somalia, Egypt, Mali, Nigeria as well as other countries in the Greater Sahel region.
