$5 million for anyone who has information about Abu Ayman al-Masri
A large cash reward will be offered for information on prominent al-Qaeda leader Ibrahim al-Banna, also known as Abu Ayman al-Masri.
The US State Department’s Rewards for Justice program is offering $5 million in reward money, according to a statement on its website and also posted on Twitter by the US Embassy in Yemen.
“Rewards for Justice offers $5 million for information on Ibrahim al-Banna, also known as Abu Ayman al-Masri,” he said.
“Al-Banna is a senior leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which has been designated by the United States as a foreign terrorist organization,” he said.
U.S. officials say Rewards for Justice has paid more than $100 million to more than 70 people who have provided information on wanted individuals since its inception in 1984.
The program also helped find and convict the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, among others, they said.
Who is al-Banna?
Rewards for Justice website, Abu Ayman al-Masri was a founding member of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula..
He took command of al-Qaeda’s security affairs and gave military and security guidance to the organization’s leaders.
The US program indicated that al-Banna was the last surviving founding member of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
Al-Qaeda’s English online magazine Ilham published an interview with al-Banna in 2010 in which he described the September 11th, 2001 attacks as a “good thing” and even threatened to target Americans around the world.
Prior to joining AQAP, he was a commander of Egyptian Islamic Jihad in Yemen from 1996 to 1998, before becoming in charge of the group’s training and intelligence sector.
In 2017, the State Department designated him as a global terrorist, after which all his property and interest held under U.S. jurisdiction were banned.
