Selected Wisdom

@Harunmaruf of Voice of America-Somalia has just posted his interview with Omar Hammami from last week.  We’ve heard Omar on social media and prepared YouTube videos.  But, we haven’t really heard much unscripted, unedited discussion from Omar.  

This interview from VOA-Somalia, done very well by Harun who asks very good questions, is fascinating to listen to – at times you can still hear a bit of Southern U.S. accent in Omar’s speech and he still uses some American jargon calling Godane (Abu Zubeyr) a “Control Freak”.

And Omar reinforces the idea that he was a terrorist Army-of-One and still committed to the end to his views of Islam and jihadi doctrine despite being shunned by both al Shabaab and al Qaeda.  Committed to the end, but yet, I’m not entirely sure to what.  Omar says at the end of the interview, he’s not coming back “unless its in a bodybag”.

Omar says that Robow is hiding in the forest as well, and that he does not have contact with Robow directly. Omar notes that there were five of them hiding together in the forest. Reports noted that Omar was killed along with a Osama al-Britani, a Somali and that Khatab al-Masri was captured. So who was #5? And did he quit or was he captured?

Take a listen:

Less than a week after popping back up briefly on Twitter, Omar Hammami has allegedly been killed by al Shabaab in Somalia.  This claim has been made before and turned out to be untrue.  However, the tweets supporting this claim seem credible.  The story has already been picked up by the BBC and the details surrounding Hammami’s death add credibility to the claims.

• Shabaab had been closing in on Omar for a while, had captured his wives – Last week’s reports noted that Omar’s wives had been detained by Shabaab and that a guard protecting Omar’s wives had been killed.  This seemingly brought Omar back out into the media.
• Omar was executed alongside two others according to these tweets from HOA. Omar al-Britani, whom I believe might be the man to the left of Omar in the picture below from January 11, 2013, and a Somali, whom I wonder might be the guy in the mask to the far right and Omar’s Somali language coach on Twitter and YouTube, were both allegedly killed along with Omar.  The BBC reports that Omar’s Egyptian friend, whom I wonder may be the man on the right of the below picture and Omar’s Arabic coach, was captured by al Shabaab.

Another of their allies, Khadap al-Masari, from Egypt, surrendered, the fighter said.

• The alleged location of the shootout also makes sense. (UPDATE: as of 1000 am EST, 12 September 2013)  Harun Maruf of VOA-Somalia, and I would guess the person that got the interview with Omar last week, says the incident happened near RamaAddey(Caday).  This would be relatively close, I think, to where Shabaab tried to assassinate Omar a few months back.  I’ll add that map from this past spring below Harun’s tweet. A new update from Harun Maruf.  So I’ve included his new tweet and an updated map with my estimate of where the shootout took place.  For me, that he was in Gedo calls into question how much support he had from Robow after all.

• Omar was one of the last one’s standing, Shabaab could consolidate on him – In previous months, Shabaab has eliminated many of its opponents killing off al-Afghani and pushing Aweys into capture.  With each dissenter eliminated, Shabaab has more force at its disposal to chase Omar.  Now I wonder, where is Robow?  He would be the last major dissenter that could stand in Godane’s way.
• What will al Qaeda say? – Omar Hammami’s plight amongst Shabaab’s oppression of foreign fighters has been ignored by al Qaeda.  They’ve turned a blind eye to the disasterous merger with Shabaab and Somalia and instead smartly focusing on opportunities in Syria and Egypt.  My guess is al Qaeda doesn’t much care about Omar or his death.  Where a year or two ago, al Qaeda desperately needed Western foreign fighters, today, the Syrian jihad provides an ample pipeline of manpower to try and tap into.  So Omar’s pleas and his plight, well they have probably soured recruitment pipelines from the West into Somalia, but not really achieved much else.

In conclusion, Omar did ultimately die at the hands of al Shabaab which he basically predicted with his public discussion.  I imagine today is a tough day for his family and I feel for them.  Omar plunged into Somalia looking for a pure ideology and committed violence in pursuit of this vision.  Only in the end, Omar found out that in Somalia as in other campaigns, jihad is really just about violence, and nothing else.

Yesterday, there were reports of VOA-Somalia interviewing Omar Hammami and today, sure enough, Omar may be back online.

First, this morning, what I initially thought was a middle school computer science project appeared on YouTube – a tribute to Omar Hammami with some sort of Somali language behind old Omar footage.  At first I didn’t get it, but then I got to wondering if this audio was some new announcement by Omar in Somali – which I unfortunately can’t speak so don’t have a clue what is being said. But I think its Omar babbling about something in Somali.

Second, the YouTube video label points to a media outlet I’ve never really heard of, Rasminews.com, which had some sort of article this morning about Omar Hammami and seems to be relatively new.

 

What’s been strange about the recent spike in Omar activity is that its been in Somali language.  Omar started his media campaign in Arabic trying to reach out to al Qaeda supporters and the Arab world.  He didn’t get much of a response.  So then, he started tweeting in English and gained quite a following from CT pundits and Westerners along with some serious pushback from Shabaab supporters. However, getting the word out in English and in the West doesn’t do you much good when you are in Somalia.  The interview with VOA-Somalia, the Rasminews website and Omar’s bad Somali dubbing suggest now he’s not trying to win over the Arab world, al Qaeda supporters or Westerners.  No, I think he’s focused 100% on winning over local Somalis – those that have got his back and unlike al Qaeda may be willing to go after and topple Godane.

Now, after three more months on the run, Omar Hammami again survives and uses another of his nine lives.  Just a little while ago the Twitter account of Omar Hammami (@abumamerican) sent out this call.

So, what’s the deal Omar? How’s your neck? When are you going to get back at Godane?

Last year, American Shabaab member Omar Hammami began a very public campaign to rebut al Shabaab and its emir Ahmed Godane.  Throughout 2012, this campaign appeared to be only the misgivings of a disgruntled foreign fighter on the outs with Shabaab’s leader.  In January, this campaign gained momentum though as Hammami, feeling threatened, turned up the public pressure on Godane and spilled all the beans on Shabaab’s rifts.  Omar’s twitter bashing of Godane gained momentum with each day he remained alive. Meanwhile other key members of Shabaab (not necessarily because of Omar Hammami but along with him) began publicly revealing their misgivings about Godane and Shabaab’s direction.  Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys gave speeches of discontent and Godane’s former buddy, Ibrahim al-Afghani, publicly called on al Qaeda’s leader, Ayman al- Zawahiri, to replace Godane as Shabaab’s leader.  More recently, Godane attempted to assassinate Omar Hammami which provoked many Shabaab leaders to issue a fatwa to protect Hammami.

So as of a couple weeks ago, it appeared Omar may have been a key element in a Shabaab revolution where Robow, Afghani, Aweys and others take back Shabaab from Godane and change the group’s direction.

Well, turns out Godane and his Shabaab loyalists still have some juice in Somalia.  In the past two weeks, Godane has gone on the offensive.  In addition to conducting an assault against the UNDP compound in Mogadishu, Godane has run his adversaries to ground.  Godane killed his former pal Ibrahim al-Afghani.  Sheikh Hassan Aweys is now imprisoned by the Somali government and some tweets I saw said Robow was on the run, potentially defecting to the government or possibly even wounded.  The best roundup I’ve read on the latest Somalia & Shabaab details comes from Hassan M. AbuBakr at African Arguments.  Check out this post and here is his conclusion.

Godane’s coup, while in essence a movement that is eating its own children, may, indeed, pave the way for the fragmentation of the militant group along clan lines. The nagging question then will be to what extent Godane, a northerner operating in the deep south of Somalia, is able to remain head of what is generally a southern jihadi phenomenon? Moreover, the influx of foreign jihadists into Somalia has, for all practical purposes, decreased and further eroded the place of that country in the annals of global jihad.

Even more interesting now is “Where is Omar Hammami?”  After helping foment and being an early advocate for an uprising against Godane, what is the American to do now?  On the outs with Shabaab and finding himself with fewer big name supporters everyday, one must wonder how long can Omar continue?  Of course, Omar has been on the run for almost a year and a half now so survival has become his expertise.  Some have said that he might be dead, and I’m sure this is possible. But I would think with all of Shabaab’s chest thumping over the killing of Afghani, they would surely use Omar’s death as another promotional sign of victory.

Here is my updated estimate of whether Omar Hammami is dead or alive:

• 75% chance he’s still alive – I’m sticking with this.  I think Shabaab would be bragging if they killed him.
• 33% chance he’s detained – I don’t think this is likely, but maybe Godane or someone else in Somalia has detained Hammami, and is trying to find a way to get that $5 million reward.  This might explain why he’s been so quiet, other than the obvious fact he’s being hunted by Godane and protected by some friends who don’t want him to be blabbering too much.  (Note: this event does not have to be mutually exclusive of him being alive – translation= the sum of my percentages here will not equal 100)
• 15% chance he’s dead – I don’t think this is the case yet. I really think we would hear about it from Shabaab if he were dead.
• 10% chance Omar is and always has been part of a Zombie vanguard operating in Somalia. As I noted a couple months back, it is inconceivable how Omar keeps surviving while big name guys like Afghani get sacked.  So I’ve upped my estimate of “Omar Hammami’s World War Z” being the impetus behind his survival and Shabaab’s chaos.