State Department increases reward for info on al-Qaeda leader to $10M
Sa'ad bin Atef al-Awlaki is the man the State Department says leads AQAP and has called for attacks against the United States and its allies.
Al-Awlaki also has led AQAP attacks against the United States and kidnapped Americans and other Westerners in Yemen in his prior role as the amir of the Shabwah province in Yemen, according to a State Department news release issued on Tuesday.
The State Department previously offered a $6 million reward for information identifying or locating al-Awlaki's whereabouts via the Rewards for Justice program.
Al-Awlaki also goes by the names Sa'd Muhammad Atif and Jalaal al-Sa-idi and was born in Yemen sometime between 1978 and 1983.
He stands 5'6" and has a thin build, according to the State Department.
The State Department also is offering rewards of $5 million and $4 million, respectively, for information leading to the identification or location of Ibrahim al-Banna and Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al-Qosi.
Al-Banna and al-Qosi are part of the leadership team that assists al-Awlaki in his role as the leader of AQAP.
Anyone with information on al-Awlaki, al-Banna or al-Qosi can contact the Rewards for Justice office via Telegram, Signal or WhatsApp at +1202-702-7843.
Those using a Tor browser also can contact the Rewards for Justice's Tor-based tipline at he5dybnt7sr6cm32xt77pazmtm65flqy6irivtflruqfc5ep7eiodiad.onion.
Congress created the Rewards for Justice program in 1984, which is administered by the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security.
The program offers rewards for information that helps protect American lives, U.S. interests and national security.
Since its inception, Rewards for Justice has paid out more than $250 million in rewards to more than 125 people who provided information that helped protect U.S. citizens and end threats to national security.
This Week in Washington
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hill
10 minutes ago
- The Hill
Trump's broken pledges are stacking up to cartoonish heights
'I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.' I'm outing myself as a comic-book nerd when I admit that President Trump often makes me think of a character from the Popeye strip — not Popeye, the spinach-eating sailor and strongman, nor his nemesis Bluto, but J. Wellington Wimpy, whose tagline has endured across decades of pop culture: 'I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.' What connects Trump and Wimpy is not just their shared love of hamburgers; it's that they are both con-men, looking to take advantage of others' gullibility or trust for their own benefit. When Tuesdays came around, Wimpy was nowhere to be found to make good on his deal. Now that voters have given Trump power, he has abandoned many of the promises he made. Consider how often Trump campaigned as if he had a foolproof plan to reduce grocery prices on day one, but in fact, grocery prices are up 3 percent year-over-year and reached record highs in 2025. In an example of classic Trump gaslighting, he's telling people the bald-faced lie that prices are ' WAY DOWN.' And think of how many times he promised not to cut Medicare or Medicaid, then bullied Republican members of Congress into passing a budget that takes $1 trillion from Medicaid, threatening to deny millions of Americans access to health care and force rural hospitals to close. Meanwhile, cuts to nutrition programs threaten rural grocery stores. Trump claimed that his trade wars and tariff policies will be good for American workers, but the actual 'deals' he is striking and policies he is imposing are undermining key industries like auto manufacturing and green energy jobs, let alone the anticipated impact on families' ability to make ends meet. He promised to balance the budget, but then pressured the Republican Congress to pass a budget that adds trillions to our national debt with a tax plan that benefits billionaires at the expense of working people. One of Trump's campaign themes has been his promise to ' drain the swamp ' and take on corruption in the nation's capital. Instead, he has elevated corruption to a previously unimaginable level, an epic level. He, his family and his companies are making billions of dollars with shady crypto schemes, deals with foreign governments, and a brazen 'money talks' approach to everything from getting presidential pardons to making antitrust and other lawsuits disappear. Trump promised to end the 'weaponization' of the government. He has, instead, turned the Justice Department, FBI and even independent agencies like the Federal Communications Commission into weapons of revenge against his personal enemies and political opponents. He has overseen the purge of FBI agents, prosecutors and other federal employees who had any role in investigating his actions and prosecuting the Jan. 6 insurrectionists. He has abused his power by bullying law firms, media companies and universities into doing his bidding — and becoming extensions of his powerful ambitions. Trump's con extends to his promise to be a champion for the rule of law, a promise he has repeatedly broken by violating the law and the Constitution. He has defied judges' rulings. He has overseen the abduction and trafficking of people into foreign concentration camps without the opportunity to prove their innocence. He granted pardons and clemency to thousands of people who took part in the attack on the U.S. Capitol, even those who brutally assaulted and injured Capitol Police officers. Trump nominated, and Republican senators irresponsibly confirmed, his former personal lawyer and prime enforcer Emil Bove to a lifetime federal judgeship, despite growing whistleblower evidence that Bove schemed to defy the courts and misled senators during his confirmation hearing. Trump said he would focus his deportation efforts on dangerous criminals and gang members. But to reach his desire for bigger numbers to brag about, his administration has unleashed terror on immigrant communities with violent arrests and brutal sweeps of hard-working and law-abiding parents and grandparents. Trump said he wants to unify the country, but he has stoked racial division, waged war on civil and voting rights and given high-ranking positions to people who have overtly promoted racism and Christian nationalists whose agendas are grounded in exclusion. It's almost laughable that Trump named his social media platform 'Truth' when one of his defining characteristics is his relentless lying about things both petty and important. Trump himself will never again face voters — we hope. Sadly, Republicans in Congress and Trump's collaborators on the Supreme Court are sacrificing our constitutional checks and balances, giving the president virtually free rein to indulge his corrupt schemes and dictatorial impulses. The American people will be paying the price long after he is gone. Trump's declining approval rating suggests that many Americans, including many who voted for Trump, are recognizing that his promises to take care of our families, our communities, our Constitution and our country, are just as trustworthy as Wimpy's pledge. So no, Trump will not be paying us next Tuesday. Or the Tuesday after. But Americans will have the final say come the first Tuesday in November. In 2026 and 2028 our elections — always held on a Tuesday — will give us a chance to stop the destruction and begin the long process of repairing and renewing our country.
USA Today
10 minutes ago
- USA Today
Trump says he loves Sydney Sweeney's jeans ad – after hearing she's a Republican
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump said he's a big fan of actress Sydney Sweeney's much-debated jeans ad campaign ‒ after hearing she's a registered Republican. Trump glowed about Sweeney's American Eagle ad after a reporter on Aug. 3 informed the president about new reports that Sweeney is registered as a Republican in Florida. "She's a registered Republican?" Trump said. "Oh, now I love her ad. Is that right? You'd be surprised at how many people are Republicans. That's one I wouldn't have known, but I'm glad you told me that. If Sydney Sweeney is a registered Republican, I think her ad is fantastic." More: Sydney Sweeney's American Eagle jeans ad sparks controversy: Here's why Over the weekend, Buzzfeed News first reported Sweeney's party affiliation. A person named Sydney B. Sweeney registered as Republican in Monroe County, Florida in June 2024, according to public voting records. Sweeney's middle name is Bernice. USA TODAY was unable to verify whether it's the same Sweeney. Trump, in an Aug. 4 post on Truth Social, his social media app, heaped additional praise on the actress. "Sydney Sweeney, a registered Republican, has the 'HOTTEST' ad out there. It's for American Eagle, and the jeans are 'flying off the shelves.' Go get 'em Sydney!" Trump said. The American Eagle ad campaign featuring the "Euphoria" actress relies on a play on words ‒ "jeans" and "genes"‒ to describe the 27-year-old Sweeney. The slogan: "Sydney Sweeney has great jeans." In one of several videos for the campaign, Sweeney, clad in a denim-on-denim fit, says: "Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color." "My jeans are blue," she continues in the ad, with jeans doing double duty as the camera pans across her true blue denim fit and her blue eyes. Critics have said the jeans campaign amounts to a dog whistle for eugenics and a glorification of whiteness. More: White House calls Sydney Sweeney ad outrage 'cancel culture run amok' White House communications director Steven Cheung last week slammed the negative reaction to Sweeney's ad as "cancel culture run amok." "This warped, moronic and dense liberal thinking is a big reason why Americans voted the way they did in 2024," Chueng wrote on X July 29, in response to an MSNBC op-ed that said it was "fair" to condemn Sweeney's ad. He added that people are "tired of this" and using a profanity. Reach Joey Garrison on X @joeygarrison.
CNBC
12 minutes ago
- CNBC
Trump stokes conspiracies about jobs data, as White House defends firing BLS chief
President Donald Trump and one of his top economic advisors stoked baseless conspiracies about federal jobs data Monday, suggesting without evidence that Friday's weaker-than-expected jobs report had been "rigged" by federal workers bent on sabotaging the president. "All over the US government, there have been people who have been resisting Trump everywhere they can," National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said Monday on CNBC. Trump, meanwhile, claimed on social media that the report, which painted a dour picture of the economy, was "RIGGED" and the previous months' revisions had been "CONCOCTED in order to make a great Republican Success look less stellar!!!" The only way to protect the integrity of economic data, said Hassett, is to replace the economists and statisticians who lead the agencies that collect data. "To make sure that the data are as transparent and as reliable as possible, we're going to get highly qualified people in there that have a fresh start and a fresh set of eyes on the problem," said Hassett. Trump abruptly fired Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner Erika McEntarfer on Friday. Monday's comments from Trump and Hassett were the latest effort by the White House to criticize the labor statistic bureau's work in order to retroactively justify McEntarfer's firing. But they also went a step further, planting the idea that any government economic data which does not fit neatly into Trump's political narrative must, by definition, be false and manipulated by partisan federal employees. When the monthly jobs report from BLS is good news for the White House, Trump is quick to claim credit for the growth and point to the BLS-supplied figures as proof that his economic plans are working. "GREAT JOB NUMBERS, FAR BETTER THAN EXPECTED. IT'S ALREADY WORKING. HANG TOUGH, WE CAN'T LOSE!!!" Trump wrote on social media this spring after job growth in March came in better-than-expected. Fast forward a few months, and Trump and his top aides now argue that the BLS data cannot be trusted, and the downward revisions to the last two months' jobs reports were phony. It's the same argument Trump used to try to undermine Americans' trust in the voting process after he lost the 2020 presidential election. In his Monday post, Trump drew a straight line between the jobs report and the voting process. "Last weeks Job's Report was RIGGED, just like the numbers prior to the Presidential Election were Rigged," Trump wrote. There is no evidence, however, that the jobs report data was manipulated, and revisions in the data are common. The reports typically become more accurate in the months after an initial report is filed, as more data flows in from business that report their hiring and firing numbers.. "The commissioner doesn't do anything to collect the numbers," former BLS chief William Beach, who was appointed by Trump, said Sunday on CNN as he slammed the decision to fire McEntarfer. "The commissioner doesn't see the numbers for — until Wednesday before they're published," he said.
