US offers $10m for information on Al-Nusra leader

CAIRO- 10 May 2017: A reward of up to $10 million has been offered for information leading to the identification and location of leader of Al-Nusra Front (ANF) terrorist group, Muhammad al-Jawlani, said a statement released on Wednesday by the US Department of State’s Rewards for Justice Program.

In April 2013, Jawlani pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda and its leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, after he had a public falling out with ISIS. Under Jawlani’s leadership, ANF has carried out multiple terrorist attacks throughout Syria, often targeting civilians. One such was the kidnap, and later release, of approximately 300 Kurdish civilians from a checkpoint in Syria in April 2015.

U.S. Department of State, under the authority of Executive Order (E.O.) 13224, named Jawlani a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in May 2013, blocking all his property and interests in property subject to U.S. jurisdiction and prohibiting U.S. nationals from interacting with him.

In June 2015, ANF claimed responsibility for the massacre of 20 residents in the Druze village of Qalb Lawzeh in Idlib province, Syria.

ANF has been designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) under the Immigration and Nationality Act and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity under E.O. 13224. The UN Security Council has also added ANF to its sanctions list.

“We encourage anyone with information about al-Jawlani to contact the Rewards for Justice office via e-mail on the website, (

info@rewardsforjustice.net

), by phone (1-800-877-3927 in North America), or by mail (Rewards for Justice, Washington, D.C., 20520-0303, USA),” the statement reads, confirming that all information will be kept strictly confidential.

This is the first Rewards for Justice reward offer for a leader of Al-Nusra Front, the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda.

The Rewards for Justice Program is administered by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security. Since its inception in 1984, the program has paid in excess of $125 million to more than 80 people who provided actionable information that helped bring terrorists to justice or prevented acts of international terrorism worldwide.