They arrested ISIS’s second-highest commander: US offered $ 5 million for his capture

The Iraqi secret service captured a leader of the jihadist group Islamic State in Turkey, Sami Jasim al Jaburi, wanted by the United States and considered to be a major financial official of the organization, Iraqi officials said Monday.

Sami Jasim al Jaburi went captured in an Iraqi secret service operation “outside the borders”Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al Kazimi tweeted. The prime minister described it as “one of the most difficult cross-border intelligence operations” ever carried out by Iraqi forces.

For the moment, Turkey has not reacted to this information. The United States has offered a reward of five million dollars (4.3 million euros) for any information on this official, who played “a fundamental role in the management of the finances” of the Islamic State, according to the US State Department.

His capture coincides with the early parliamentary elections on Sunday, “when the heroes of the security forces were protecting the elections,” he added without specifying the location of his capture.

However, senior Iraqi military official told AFP he was captured in Turkey, without giving more details on the place and the circumstances of the operation.

According to the American authorities, Jaburi is said to have held a post “equivalent” to that of “finance minister” within ISIS, “overseeing the group’s operations which generate income from the illegal sale of oil, gas, antiques and minerals “.

In September 2015, the US Treasury Department included Jaburi on its list of “terrorists” who could be the target of sanctions.

Jasim worked with al-Qaeda leader in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was later killed by US forces in Iraq in 2016. He held various security positions in Iraq and moved to Syria in 2015 after ISIS, an Al Qaeda spin-off, declared a caliphate in 2014 and to seize a third of Iraqi territory in a lightning offensive. He became number two for Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the extremist group.

The Iraqi government declared victory over the jihadists in late 2017, thanks to a military campaign backed by a US-led coalition. ISIS was defeated in Syria in 2019, the year Al-Baghdadi was killed in a US-led raid in northwestern Syria.

Currently, the Islamic State “maintains a clandestine presence in Iraq and Syria and conducts armed operations on both sides of the border of the two countries,” according to a UN report released in 2021.

In these two countries, there are approximately “10,000 active combatants”, according to the report.

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