Ex-Bahraini blacklisted by US over links with IS
The United States blacklisted three people on Thursday for working for the Islamic State (IS) terrorist organisation, reports confirmed. This included ex-Bahraini citizen and the group’s most prominent preacher Turki Al Binali.
“Al Binali was sanctioned for helping IS recruit foreign fighters,” the US Treasury said in a statement.
The 31-year-old was an early supporter of IS and authored a frequently cited biography of the group’s leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi.
“Experts said the preacher’s writings helped lay the religious legal groundwork for the group to declare a so-called caliphate, which it did in 2014 in parts of Syria and Iraq it controls,” Reuters said in a recent report.
“Al Binali is believed to be the group’s chief religious authority, and has written a text that traces Al Baghdadi’s lineage to the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH),” IS expert at Princeton University Cole Bunzel told Reuters.
Al Binali issued a treatise that rallied militant Islamists to the cause and has denounced IS’ many Muslim critics.
Bunzel said, “Sanctions are unlikely to have any impact on Al Binali, who comes from a wealthy family.”
“The most ideologically committed person to this movement that I know,” he described Al Binali. “To him, this is very much not about money.”
A Treasury spokeswoman said Thursday’s actions were “the first US sanctions to target Al Binali.” The sanctions freeze any US assets the men might have and prohibit Americans from dealing with them.
Quoting another official, the report said “while they have little immediate practical impact, the sanctions have a naming and shaming effect and allow for follow-on actions against people linked to Al Binali.”
Another man sanctioned on Thursday was Saudi Faisal Ahmad Ali Al Zahrani, who the Treasury Department said is responsible for the organisation’s oil and gas activities in northeastern Syria.
The US body said Al Zahrani for a time answered directly and transferred funds to top IS financial official Abu Sayyaf, who was killed in a US Special Operations Forces raid last May.
A US Treasury official said this week that US-led coalition air strikes targeting IS’ oil and cash-storage sites, have forced the group to cut its fighters’ pay by up to 50 per cent.
Husayn Juaythini, born in a refugee camp in Gaza, was also sanctioned as he was trying to establish a foothold for IS in Gaza, the Treasury said.
DT News reported on February 1, 2015, that Turki Mubarak Abdullah Al Binali was number 17 on a list of 72 Bahraini citizens, who were stripped of their nationalities by the Government of Bahrain.
Interior Ministry announced back then that the citizenships of the people on the list were revoked due to several reasons, including joining terrorism cells to harm the interests of the Kingdom and its stability, financing groups carrying terrorism operations, working to form a terrorism group and training on the use of weapon to commit crimes, members in fighting terrorism organisations abroad and abuse against brotherly countries.
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