Somali fighters warn U.S. jihadist to surrender or face execution
Alabama native says group he went to fight for has turned on him
JOHANNESBURG— An Alabama native who moved to Somalia to wage jihad alongside Al Shabab militants faces a Saturday deadline to surrender to the insurgents or be killed, according to his Internet posting. Omar Hammami — who the FBI named as one of its most-wanted terrorists in November — has engaged in a public fight with Al Shabab over the last year, and a Twitter account that terrorism analysts believe is run by Hammami or his associates announced Jan. 4 that Al Shabab fighters had given him 15 days to surrender, or else.
“Shabab make (an) announcement in front of amriki: drop ur weapon b4 15 days or be killed. Its on,” the tweet from the Twitter handle @abumamerican said. Hammami’s nom de guerre is Abu Mansoor Al-Amriki, or “the American.”
The killing of an American foreign fighter would likely harm Al Shabab’s efforts to recruit Westerners, but Hammami has felt in danger for many months. Hammami first expressed fear for his life in an extraordinary web video last March that publicized his rift with the Al Qaeda-linked Al Shabab. Hammami spent a year in Toron- to after he converted to Islam and quit university in 2002, dashing his father’s dream that he would become a surgeon. He wrote in his online biography that he missed Tim Hortons coffee. Hammami has since levelled a myriad of accusations at the group — corruption, murder, ignoring global jihad — and analysts agree the American has become an Al Shabab PR problem. “Something tells me at some point they just need to shut this guy up. At some point he stops being a nuisance and starts being a problem,” said Bill Roggio, editor of The Long War Journal. “He may be signing his own death warrant . . . I suspect if they end up executing him, they won’t do it in the timeline that he claims.” Even if the death threat isn’t carried out immediately, Clint Watts — a former executive officer at West Point’s Combatting Terrorism Center — said Hammami needs to flee if he wants to save his own skin. “He’s always going to be looking over his shoulder in Somalia. They’re not going to forget, and eventually they’re going to come after him. I mean, he’s just killing Al Shabab right now,” said Watts, who suggested that Hammami must run, turn himself in to U.S. authorities or fight to stay alive in Somalia as long as he can. “And I think he still ends up being killed in the long run,” said Watts, a senior fellow at the Homeland Security Policy Institute and the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Along with Adam Gadahn in Pakistan — a former Osama bin Laden spokesman — Hammami is one of the two most notorious Americans in jihad groups. Hammami has made frequent appearances in Al Shabab combat videos, and in 2011 he released two rap songs, “Send Me a Cruise (missile)” and “Make Jihad With Me.” Hammami has grievances with Al Shabab that has angered the Somali fighters: First, that militant leaders live extravagant lifestyles with the taxes fighters collect from Somali residents. His second major grievance is that the Somali militant leaders sideline foreign militants inside Al Shabab and are concerned only about fighting in Somalia, not globally. With files from national security reporter Michelle Shephard