Iraqi Releases 60 Most Wanted List

Iraqi security services have revealed 60 most wanted people in the country.

Amongst the 60 is the eldest daughter of Saddam Hussein, Raghad. Authorities said the 60 people wanted are on suspicion of belonging to the Islamic State group, al-Qaeda or the al-Baath Party.

According to Saudi-owned Al Arabiya TV channel, Raghad responded in a telephone interview that she has pledged to confront those who “insult her” by suing them back.

Raghad fled to Jordan along with her sister, Rana, and their children in July 2003.

Since 2006, she has been on the list which the new Iraqi government is seeking to prosecute for supporting violence.

However, the Jordanian government has turned down the request by Iraq to hand over Raghad, insisting that to do so would violate Arab traditions of hospitality.

The name of elusive IS head Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is absent from the list. A senior security official contacted by AFP declined to explain why.

“These are the terrorists most wanted by the judicial authorities and the security services,” the official said. “This is the first time we publish these names which, until now were secret.”

The IS fighters the document lists are accused of fighting in Iraq’s second city Mosul and the surrounding province of Nineveh, as well as in the provinces of Kirkuk, Diyala and Anbar.

IS seized a third of Iraq’s territory during a lightning advance in 2014, before being beaten back by security forces backed by a United States-led coalition.

IS fighters on the list seen by AFP on Sunday are accused of murders, bombings, attacks on security forces, and the financing and transport of weapons.

The list includes senior members of the group, among them Fawaz Mohammad Mutlaq, a former officer in Saddam’s Fedayeen paramilitary organisation who later became a member of IS’s military council.