Posts Tagged ‘omar hammami’
 
February 26, 2013 0

Al Shabaab Highlights Global Role in New Video

Al Shabaab, the Soma­lia branch of Al Qaeda, released a new English-language and English-subtitled video yes­ter­day directed at West­ern audiences. 

The video, “Mujahideen Moments,” high­lights the role of for­eign fight­ers in the ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion, fea­tur­ing state­ments and speeches by two Kenyans and an Amer­i­can, iden­ti­fied only as “Abu Ahmed al-Amriki.”

Abu Ahmed’s face is obscured in the video and it is impos­si­ble at this point to ver­ify his true iden­tity.  Abu Ahmed urges lis­ten­ers to join the bat­tle­fronts “whether it’s here in Soma­lia, whether it’s in Mali, whether it’s in Afghanistan, whether it’s in Iraq, or whether it’s in Al-Maghrib Al-Islami [North Africa],” say­ing that they should fight because there are no excuses from the oblig­a­tion of jihad.  He also promises vic­tory and that “Amer­ica is going down, and the Khi­lafah [Caliphate] is rising.”

The video encour­ages for­eign­ers to join jihad, or if they can­not travel, to “fight the ene­mies of Allah where you find them.”

While Al Shabaab has long used for­eign fight­ers in its pro­pa­ganda to attract West­ern recruits, the video seems to be, in part, a response to its for­mer Amer­i­can spokesper­son, Omar Ham­mami. Ham­mami appar­ently split with the group over his belief that it was inter­ested only in local pol­i­tics and the fight in Soma­lia, rather than the cause of a global ”jiahd of the entire Ummah [Mus­lim nation].” In mes­sages released late last year, Ham­mami high­lighted the ten­sions between “the muha­jireen [Arabs and for­eign fight­ers] and the Ansar [local sup­port­ers of Al Shabaab].”

By fea­tur­ing for­eign fight­ers in the video, espe­cially Abu Ahmed, Al Shabaab may be try­ing to counter Hammami’s alle­ga­tions and show that it main­tains a sig­nif­i­cant inter­na­tional sup­port base.

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December 12, 2012 0

Shabaab Spokesman’s “Close Friend” Arrested

Two Amer­i­can cit­i­zens resid­ing in Alabama were arrested yes­ter­day in Geor­gia on sus­pi­cion of terrorism-related activity.

Randy “Rasheed” Wil­son was arrested in Atlanta attempt­ing to board a flight to Morocco. Wilson allegedly claimed to be a close friend of Omar Ham­mami, the Alabama native who became the pub­lic face of Al Shabaab, the Al Qaeda-affiliated Somali ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion. His co-conspirator, Moham­mad Abukhdair, was arrested at a bus sta­tion en route to Canada from where he report­edly planned to join Wil­son.  Both were charged with con­spir­ing to pro­vide mate­r­ial sup­port to ter­ror­ists in an Alabama fed­eral court on Monday.

Accord­ing to court doc­u­ments, Wil­son and Abukhdair expressed their admi­ra­tion for rad­i­cal American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and Osama bin Laden, as well as repeat­ing their com­mit­ment to carry out vio­lent jihad, to an under­cover FBI employee.  They even turned over a cache of jihadist pro­pa­ganda, includ­ing Awlaki lec­tures, to the under­cover employee for destruc­tion. Wil­son, who is 25, appar­ently believed that “one way or another everyone’s gonna have to fight… there’s no deed bet­ter than jihad,” accord­ing to the tran­scripts of recorded con­ver­sa­tions sub­mit­ted to the court.

Wil­son had pre­vi­ously report­edly con­spired with another mutual friend of Hammami’s (who later became a con­fi­den­tial infor­mant) to travel to Soma­lia to join Al Shabaab. Abukhdair had been detained by Egypt­ian author­i­ties on sus­pi­cion of involve­ment in ter­ror­ist activ­ity and was deported back to the United States.  He appar­ently admit­ted to the under­cover FBI employee that he had jihadist mate­r­ial on his lap­top at the time and believed that “Allah pro­tected him” because Egypt­ian intel­li­gence had not found it.

The two men, who met online in 2010, sup­pos­edly dis­cussed sev­eral pos­si­ble des­ti­na­tions, includ­ing trav­el­ing to Soma­lia via Sudan, where they report­edly expected spe­cial treat­ment because of Wilson’s rela­tion­ship with Ham­mami. Abukhdair alter­na­tively pro­posed that they carry out attacks in the United States because he feared he would not be allowed to travel inter­na­tion­ally after being turned away from a flight to Jor­dan ear­lier this year.  Accord­ing to the charges, Abukhdair allegedly sug­gested engag­ing in hostage-taking oper­a­tions in the U.S. and demand­ing the release of Mus­lim ter­ror­ists being held in Amer­i­can pris­ons in exchange.

The court doc­u­ments assert that Wil­son and Abukhdair made def­i­nite travel arrange­ments to go to Mau­ri­ta­nia via Morocco in October. The two also report­edly dis­cussed trav­el­ing to Mali from Mau­ri­ta­nia where Islamic mil­i­tants are active in the north of the country.

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September 20, 2012 0

Chicago Teen Arrested For “Violent Jihad” Bomb Plot

Adel Daoud Photo From Facebook

An 18-year-old Chicagoan was arrested last week by the FBI for attempt­ing to det­o­nate what he believed was a car bomb out­side a bar in down­town Chicago. The plot was appar­ently intended as retal­i­a­tion for America’s per­ceived war with Islam and “oppres­sion against Muslims.”

Adel Daoud was arrested after try­ing to set off a fake device set up by FBI agents as a part of a sting oper­a­tion. Fed­eral author­i­ties began mon­i­tor­ing Daoud in Octo­ber 2011, after dis­cov­er­ing his rad­i­cal posts on Jihadist Inter­net forums.

His online activ­ity included send­ing friends copies of Al Qaeda in the Ara­bian Peninsula’s English-language ter­ror­ist mag­a­zine, Inspire, in order to “brain­wash them.” On one online extrem­ist forum, Daoud described Inspire as “the best mag­a­zine I have read.”

He also shared recorded lec­tures by Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born Mus­lim cleric killed in Yemen last year, and a video by Amer­i­can ter­ror­ist Omar Ham­mami, an Alabama native who became the pub­lic face and voice of Al Shabaab, the Al Qaeda affil­i­ate in Somalia.

Accord­ing to the FBI affi­davit, Daoud also used the inter­net to research jus­ti­fi­ca­tions for sui­cide bomb­ings and attacks on civil­ians. In May of this year, fed­eral author­i­ties began com­mu­ni­cat­ing with Daoud online and by July, under­cover agents were meet­ing with him in person.

Dur­ing the course of the FBI inves­ti­ga­tion, accord­ing to the affi­davit, Daoud expressed his desire to carry out attacks in the United States and to travel abroad to join ter­ror­ist groups over­seas, in par­tic­u­lar in Yemen. Daoud allegedly applied for a new pass­port in March 2012.

Before set­tling on the bar, Daoud pre­sented a list of pro­posed tar­gets, includ­ing mil­i­tary instil­la­tions, con­certs, malls and tourist attrac­tions. Accord­ing to a recorded con­ver­sa­tion with the under­cover agent, Daoud alluded to the fact that Mus­lims shouldn’t be at a bar, and if they are, they deserve what they get.

“I want [to do] some­thing that’s gonna make it in the news,” he said, accord­ing to the affi­davit. “If it’s only like five, ten peo­ple, I’m not gonna feel that good.”

One of Daoud’s friends was allegedly involved in the plot as well, but dropped out after being con­fronted by the sheikh at the mosque they attended.

Daoud has been charged with attempted use of a weapon of mass destruc­tion and an explo­sives violation. He faces a max­i­mum pun­ish­ment of life in prison.

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