The United States has raised their offer for information that leads to the location, capture or conviction of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to $25 million.
"Protecting the homeland and the American people is our top counterterrorism priority, and just as we have intensified our efforts against ISIL, we are increasing the means available to us to gain information on their leadership and bring them to justice," the State Department announced via a press release, according to The Hill.
Previously, information on Baghdadi was worth a $10 million award. The increase puts him close to al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri.
Baghdadi released an audio message to his followers in November, ending almost a year of silence. His current location is unknown.
Brett McGurk, the special presidential envoy for the global coalition combating ISIS, said in a press briefing Tuesday that the ISIS leader hasn’t been seen in more than a year.
"I also think it is significant that he tried to be a kind of new type of terrorist leader — giving public speeches, going to the Grand Mosque and giving this sermon in the summer of 2014 — and he is now in deep, deep hiding," McGurk said, according to the Hill.
"And we have not heard from him until he issued this audiotape a couple months ago, and it was a very defensive message. It basically said, for all of the fighters in Mosul, stay and fight to the death. But all the indications we're getting is that many did not take that message well, because where is Baghdadi? He is somewhere in hiding."
McGurk tweeted on Tuesday that five ISIS leaders were killed in coalition airstrikes since mid-November.
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