Thursday, March 10, 2011

Alabama-born jihadist Omar Hammami may be dead, Somali defense minister reports

This undated file photo shows Abu Mansour al-Amriki, or "the American," the fighting name of Daphne native Omar Hammami.

Somali Defense Minister Abdihakim Mohamud Haji Fiqi told The Associated Press on Tuesday that "intelligence reports" suggested Hammami had been killed in fighting between government forces, backed by African Union troops, and al-Shabaab. (AP Photo/IntelCenter)

Omar Hammami, the "jihadist-next-door" from Daphne who authorities say came to hold a top leadership position in an al-Qaeda-affiliated militant group in Somalia, may have been killed during recent fighting in the warn-torn east African country, Somalia’s defense minister said Tuesday.

Gene Ponder, who taught Hammami and coached his soccer team at Daphne High, said Tuesday that, despite the young man’s violent activities, he hoped for the 27-year-old’s Daphne family that the news was not true.

"A few colleagues called me today to tell me the news. I can only imagine what his poor mother and grandmother are going through," Ponder said. "This was a smart kid, athletic, outgoing, who had everything going for him."

The Press-Register’s efforts to contact Hammami’s family were unsuccessful Tuesday.

Somali Defense Minister Abdihakim Mohamud Haji Fiqi told The Associated Press that "intelligence reports" suggested Hammami had been killed in fighting between government forces, backed by African Union troops, and al-Shabaab.

Fiqi said Somali officials do not have a body and that the intelligence reports have not yet been confirmed. United States military and intelligence officials would not confirm or deny Fiqi’s information.

"I’m aware of the reporting" about Hammami, FBI spokeswoman Kathy Wright told a Press-Register reporter Tuesday morning. "We can’t confirm that."

His death would be a major blow to the group, whose forces control large portions of the country.

Aside from rising to a senior leadership position in a Muslim terrorist organization, Hammami is exceptional for engaging in efforts to recruit Western Muslims to the jihadi cause.

A half-hour Shabaab video released in March 2009 showed Hammami leading fighters as jihadist rap played in the background. In the video, he reads from the Koran and lectures recruits.

Hammami’s transformation from middle-class Daphne teen to international terrorist — who eventually chose as his nom de guerre Abu Mansour al-Amriki, or "The American" — has been the subject of countless newspaper stories and television documentaries in the past year and a half.

The media storm began in September 2009, when a federal grand jury issued a secret indictment charging Hammami with providing material support to terrorists in Somalia.

An array of people from Hammami’s past were interviewed.

Among them were Cynthia McMeans, who taught Hammami in an international studies class and a Model United Nations program. McMeans told the Press-Register how Hammami, who had been raised in the Plantation Hills subdivision in Daphne, had come to espouse radical Islamic views in 11th grade.

Another was Mike Faulk, a classmate whom Hammami had attempted to strangle after Faulk had teased him for speaking Arabic in class.

At the 2001 Baldwin Model United Nations, students gave Hammami the honorific "most likely to cause or inspire an international incident."

Hammami attended the University of South Alabama in Mobile, where he was president of the Muslim Student Association ten years ago. Hammami enrolled at the university in 2001 but left in 2002.

Hammami is the son of a Southern Baptist mother, Debra Hammami, and a Muslim father from Syria, Shafik Hammami, who works as an engineer for the Alabama Department of Transportation in Mobile. His father has said Omar had "gone against everything I taught him" by devoting himself to radical Islam.

Fighting in Somalia has intensified in recent months to reclaim control of the southern part of the country from al-Shabaab. Time is short for Somalia’s United Nations-recognized transitional federal government, which expires in August but has been unable to hold democratic elections because of the disorder.

The transitional government, established in 2004, is the most recent attempt to restore national institutions to Somalia after the 1991 collapse of the Siad Barre regime and the ensuing Somali Civil War.

(Staff Reporter George Altman and The Associated Press contributed to this story.)

Source: The Associated Press

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