The United States on Tuesday offered a reward of up to $3 million for information about a former Tajik special operations officer who received American counterterrorism training before joining the Islamic State terrorist group. Col. Gulmurod Khalimov of Tajikistan's elite police force announce his defection to Islamic State in May via a YouTube video. The U.S. State Department announced the bounty for Khalimov in a statement that made no mention of his training, which included attending five U.S.-funded courses in the United States and Tajikistan between 2003 and 2014. The statement described Khalimov as "a key leader" of the Islamic State militant group. "Khalimov is a former Tajik special operations colonel, police commander, and military sniper. He was the commander of a police special operations unit in the Ministry of Interior of Tajikistan. He is now an ISIL member and recruiter. In May 2015, he announced in a 10-minute propaganda video that he fights for ISIL and has called publicly for violent acts against the United States, Russia, and Tajikistan," the statement said. The State Department's Rewards for Justice program, which has also targeted al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, offered up to $3 million for information leading to Khalimov's location, arrest or conviction. The State Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity suggested that Khalimov was regarded as a special threat because of his counterterrorism training, which included "crisis response, hostage negotiation and tactical leadership." "We consider Gulmurod Khalimov to be a threat to national security and the U.S. Department of State due to his prior counterterrorism experience and training," one official said. He declined to say exactly how many courses Khalimov attended in the U.S. and where they took place or to shed further light on his evolution from a counterterrorism commander to an Islamic State leader, saying only that the training was provided under the State Department's anti-terrorism assistance program.
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US places $3 million bounty on special ops officer turned terrorist
Col. Gulmurod Khalimov, a former Tajik special operations officer, police commander, and military sniper, received American counterterrorism training before joining ranks of jihadi group in May • State Department says Khalimov is a "key" ISIS leader.