Iraq publishes most wanted list headed by IS leader

BAGHDAD: Iraqi authorities published a list of most wanted fugitives on Tuesday headed by elusive Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his number two.

It was the second list Iraq had published this week of people wanted on suspicion of belonging to the Islamic State group, Al-Qaeda or the Baath Party of executed dictator Saddam Hussein. “They are more dangerous than those who appeared on the first list published on Sunday and they are wanted internationally whereas the others are wanted only by the Iraqi courts,” a security official told AFP.

The IS leader appears on the list under his real name Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim Ali al-Badri al-Samarrai. His deputy is listed as Abdel Rahman al-Qaduli rather than his nom de guerre Abu Alaa al-Afari.

Seven other Iraqis are on the list as are five foreigners — two Saudis, a Jordanian, a Yemeni and a Qatari.They include those alleged to belong to IS and Al-Qaeda, with some accused of involvement in financing or fighting in Afghanistan.

Sunday’s list contained the names of 60 wanted suspect, all but one of them Iraqis.It includes the name of Saddam’s daughter Raghad, who lives in neighbouring Jordan.It also features 28 suspected IS jihadists, 12 from Al-Qaeda and 20 Baathists.

Iraqi Kurds say 4,000 jihadists detained including foreigners: Authorities in Iraqi Kurdistan said Tuesday they had detained some 4,000 suspected members of the Islamic State jihadist group, including foreigners, in recent years.

They include around 1,000 jihadists who surrendered during the battle for Hawija, the last IS urban stronghold in Iraq until its fall late last year, Iraqi Kurdish official Dindar Zibari told reporters. He said 350 people detained in northern Iraq who admitted to belonging to IS had been transferred from the city of Kirkuk, retaken by federal forces in October, to Kurdish-run prisons.

Human Rights Watch said in December that hundreds of detainees held by the Iraqi Kurdish authorities in Kirkuk were feared to have been “forcibly disappeared”.“The names of all these prisoners were submitted to the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross, but they did not inform the families of 350 people,” Zibari said.

He did not specify the number of foreigners among those arrested but said some had already been sent home, including a Japanese journalist detained in 2016 on suspicion of ties to IS. Security forces from the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq have played a significant role in the war against IS.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared victory in December in the three-year campaign by Iraqi forces to expel IS jihadists from the vast areas north and west of Baghdad. His forces also took back disputed areas in the north from the Kurds after Baghdad rejected a controversial Kurdish independence vote in September. Baghdad has called for detainees to be handed over to the federal government but that “should be done under the supervision of the United Nations,” Zebari said.