ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Iraqi security forces released a list of Iraq's 60 most wanted persons on Sunday for their connections to ISIS, al-Qaeda or members of the late dictator Saddam Hussein's Baath party. The list does not include the ISIS leader Abu Bakir al-Baghadi.
The list is comprised of all Iraqis, with the exception of one Lebanese national, including the daughter of the former Iraqi president Raghad who currently lives in Jordan.
AFP reported that they had access to view the list of terror suspects.
The Lebanese suspect, Maan Bashour, is accused of recruiting fellow citizens to fight in Iraq.
The US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 put an end to the former Iraqi regime.
"It's an old story that dates back to the American invasion of Iraq when we were partisans of the Iraqi resistance," Bashour told AFP. "Yes, we carried out activities against the American occupation."
The list included the names 20 Baathists, 12 al-Qaeda members, and 28 suspected ISIS fighters. However, the name of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi who declared the so-called caliphate in 2014 was absent from the list.
AFP contacted a senior Iraqi security official but he declined to comment on why al-Baghdadi's name wasn't included.
The ISIS group announced the so-called caliphate in Iraq and Syria after they captured Iraq's second-largest city of Mosul in June 2014. The Iraqi forces, supported by the US-led Global Coalition against ISIS and the Kurdish Peshmerga fighters liberated the city late last year.
The ISIS member's names included on the list are accused of fighting in Mosul, the surrounding Nineveh province in addition to Kirkuk, Diyala and Anbar.
AFP reported that the ISIS fighter's names included on the list were accused of murders, bombings, attacks on security forces, and the financing and transport of weapons.
"These are the terrorists most wanted by the judicial authorities and the security services," the security official said. "This is the first time we publish these names which, until now were secret."
