Bounty for Iraq al Qaida Leader Slashed

$5 million down $100 000, an indication that bu Ayyub al-Masri isn't that important after all? US News

The U.S. government has quietly withdrawn a $5 million reward it was offering for the killing or capture of Abu Ayyub al-Masri, named by Pentagon officials as the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

Al-Masri had been one of America's most wanted figures in Iraq ever since his identity was revealed in 2006. But U.S. News has learned that the bounty for him was reduced and that he was unceremoniously dropped in late February from the State Department's Rewards for Justice Program, which offers cash payments for information that leads to the capture or killing of wanted terrorists.

Currently, the bounty for the Egyptian militant stands at $100,000, a more modest payout that is now covered by the separate—and decidedly lower profile—Department of Defense Rewards Program.

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Officially, defense sources say that rewards have historically been reduced for a number of reasons. "When they have reduced rewards in the past, some of the discussion has been to devalue them [the terrorists], to not hold them in such high regard," says a senior defense official. It's psychological warfare of sorts: "It may cause them to do things that say, 'Look, I'm important,'" says the official—and in so doing, perhaps do something that makes it easier for them to be captured. The reasons in the past have also been more pedestrian, adds the official. "Sometimes the rewards are set so high that for some people maybe $100,000 is more tangible than $1 million."

Others insist that the move reflects a shift in thinking about the importance of al-Masri. "The overarching reason is his blatant ineffectiveness as a leader of AQI," says a U.S. military official.

Particularly striking, however, given the heavy emphasis that the U.S. government has placed on the target, is the number of senior officials who were only vaguely aware of the reduction in the bounty on al-Masri. "I had heard that they were talking about doing that," says a senior U.S. military official in Baghdad. "I would think that we have some input on that." The move also leaves questions about why Pentagon officials would want to remove al-Masri from the Rewards for Justice site, which has higher visibility on the Web than the Pentagon's program.

When U.S. officials first revealed al-Masri's identity, the Pentagon offered a $250,000 reward for his capture. Later, the figure was raised to $5 million as part of the State Department's rewards program. But al-Masri's photos were removed from the Rewards for Justice website in February, although some other government websites have not been updated to reflect the change.