Syrian national sentenced to death by Iraqi court

Baghdad’s criminal court on Tuesday has sentenced a Syrian national to death on charges of financing Islamic State (IS) militants.
The court found convicted the Syrian of drawing money transfers from Arab, European and African countries to the extremist group, Iraq’s judicial council speaker Abdul-Sattar Bairaqdar was quoted as saying in a statement.
“He was arrested during an Iraqi air force airdrop near the Syrian borders,” the official stated, adding that the sentence was delivered based on the counter-terrorism law.
Last year, an Iraqi court sentenced 40 captured members of ISIS to death on Thursday for the killing of hundreds of soldiers after their capture by the ultra-radical militant group as it swept across northern Iraq in 2014, a judicial spokesman said.
Iraqi government forces, backed by a U.S.-led military coalition and popular forces, are on a major campaign to drive Islamic State militants out of territories taken over by the group in 2014, most remarkably the city of Mosul, the group’s largest urban stronghold in the country.
IS’s influence has receded since security operations launched in October 2016, and the group has lost a half of Mosul and preparations are running by the government forces to invade the west. The group maintains a few other pockets in Anbar, Salahuddin and Kirkuk.