Indian-origin Siddhartha Dhar of IS designated as global terrorist by US

NEW DELHI: Indian-origin Islamic State terrorist from Britain Siddhartha Dhar and Belgian-Moroccan citizen Abdelatif Gaini were today designated as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs) by the US.
Siddhartha Dhar was a leading member of now-defunct terrorist organization Al-Muhajiroun. In late 2014, Dhar left the United Kingdom to travel to Syria to join ISIS. He is considered to have replaced ISIS executioner Mohammad Emwazi, also known as “Jihadi John”.Dhar is believed to be the masked leader who appeared in a January 2016 ISIS video of the execution of several prisoners ISIS accused of spying for the UK, the Department of State said in a statement.
The current designations by the Department of State seek to deny Dhar and Gaini the resources they need to plan and carry out further terrorist attacks. Among other consequences, all of Dhar’s and Gaini’s property and interests in property subject to U.S. jurisdiction are blocked, and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in any transactions with them.
In 2016, a Yazidi teenager, Nihad Barakat, held as a sex slave by the group, was quoted as saying by the Independent that she was kidnapped and trafficked by Siddhartha, who was then based in Mosul, the group's Iraqi stronghold.
"When I was captured near Kirkuk, they took me to another leader from Mosul. His name was Abu Dhar. He also took Yazidi girls for himself. Every day he would tell me that I had to marry another man," she said.
Dhar's sister, Konika Dhar, had appeared before a House of Commons Home Affairs Committee hearing earlier in 2016 which was trying to establish the possibility of Siddhartha being the masked man who appeared in an ISIS propaganda video showing "British spies" being executed.
"I'm still holding to the firm belief that what I'm seeing is not him - and I haven't had verification otherwise. It's sort of the realisation that 'is he really my brother that has done this? and I can't accept that he would ever do that. I can't accept it," the London-based law student had said.
Siddhartha had six previous arrests while in the UK and was free on bail when he was able to escape from the UK via Paris.
British police reportedly wrote to Siddhartha UK address to remind him of the need to surrender his passport, by which point he was already in Syria.
"What a shoddy security system Britain must have to allow me to breeze through Europe to (ISIS)," he tweeted on his arrival in ISIS territories.
Abdelatif Gaini is a Belgian-Moroccan citizen believed to be fighting for ISIS in the Middle East. Gaini is connected to UK-based ISIS sympathizers Mohamad Ali Ahmed and Humza Ali, who were convicted in the UK in 2016 of terrorism offenses.