The US State Department is offering up to $10 million for information about the head of the Tehran-backed Iraqi military group Kataeb Sayyid al-Shuhada (KSS), which the US calls a terrorist group.
According to AFP, US officials posted on social media yesterday that they were looking for information on KSS leader Hashim Finyan Rahim al-Saraji, who is also known as Abu Alaa al-Walai.
Washington added that the group had “killed Iraqi civilians and attacked U.S. diplomatic facilities in Iraq, as well as U.S. military bases and personnel in Iraq and Syria.”
The message says that if you know where al-Saraji is, you might be able to move and get a prize.
Al-Saraji is a member of the Coordination Framework, which is the dominant Shiite alliance that controls the majority of seats in parliament.
Iran-backed militias have attacked the US embassy in Iraq’s capital, the US diplomatic and logistics center at Baghdad’s airport, and oil fields run by international businesses.
The Middle East war began when the US and Israel invaded Iran on February 28. Iraq, which had just gotten some stability back after decades of war, was quickly pulled into it.
A similar reward was offered earlier this month for the commander of Kataeb Hezbollah, a prominent Iraqi armed organization who kidnapped US journalist Shelly Kittleson last month and held her for a week before letting her go.
This week, US media sources say that Washington has put a lot of pressure on Baghdad to battle the pro-Iran groups by stopping cash supplies and freezing funds for security programs in Iraq.
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