Iraqi Islamic State leader sentenced to death

The Iraqi judiciary on Monday issued four death penalties and a life imprisonment against an Islamic State (ISIS) local leader for involvement in various terrorist crimes in Salahudin Province, north of the capital Baghdad, Xinhua reports.

A statement by the Iraqi Supreme Judicial Council said the convicted terrorist was known to be a judge in Islamic law for the extremist group in Salahudin.

The terrorist, whose name was not revealed, was found guilty in several cases, including the killing of five Iraqi soldiers by a roadside bomb attack, complicity with other convicts in the kidnapping of a civilian, and carrying out attacks with other ISIS jihadists on the town of Amerly, some 150 km north of Baghdad, according to the statement.

ISIS overran large swathes of Syria and Iraq in 2014, proclaiming a “caliphate” in land it controlled.

Since then, several military offensives, including those backed by the US-led coalition, have since seen ISIS lose most areas it once controlled, including the loss of their de facto capital Raqqa in Syria.

The group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was eliminated in late October of 2019 in a US operation in Syria after years of conflicting reports about his fate.

ISIS subsequently named Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi as the jihadist group’s new leader.

Source: INN