U.S. announces $10 million bounty on key al-Qaeda financier eluding a six-year capture in Iran
By Reuters ReporterLast updated at 4:21 AM on 23rd December 2011
Wanted: The U.S. has offered $10 million for information leading to the arrest of Ezedin Abdel Aziz Khalil or Yasin al Suri who is an Iran-based senior financier of Al Qaeda
The bounty is the first offered for an al-Qaeda financier and is aimed at disrupting a financial network that has operated from within Iran's borders since 2005, said Eytan Fisch, a senior Treasury Department official.
Robert Hartung, a senior State Department official, said that under an agreement between al-Qaeda and the government of Iran, al-Suri had helped move money and recruits through Iran to al-Qaeda leaders in neighboring countries.
Hartung said al-Suri, who is originally from Syria, also was known as Ezedin Abdel Aziz Khalil.
The U.S. Treasury Department in July blacklisted al-Suri and five other members of his network, exposing what the United States says are direct links between Tehran and the al-Qaeda network.
Leaders: While the former al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, right, has been killed, the group's number two deputy Ayman al-Zawahri, left, is still at large at a price tag of $25 million
'He is a dedicated terrorist working in support of al-Qaeda with the support of the government of Iran,' Hartung said.
'As a key fundraiser for the al-Qaeda terrorist network, he is a continuing danger to the interests of the United States.
'Since 1984 the U.S. Rewards for Justice program has paid more than $100 million to more than 70 people who provided credible information that either prevented terrorist attacks or helped bring accused terrorists to justice, the State Department's Hartung said.
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