American Born AQ Omar Hammami Posts His Autobiography Online
The mystery of Omar Hammami — a 28-year-old American jihadist wanted by the F.B.I. after joining an Al Qaeda affiliate in Somalia — has only deepened in recent months.
Hammami had been the Western face of a militant group known as the Shabaab, starring in rap-infused propaganda videos that celebrated his status as a field commander. But in March, he released a somber video saying his life was in danger due to “differences” he had with another Shabaab faction. Rumors followed that he had been beheaded. Then, last week, Hammami resurfaced, uploading a lengthy autobiography to the Internet titled “The Story of an American Jihadi: Part One.”
In the history of militant jihad, there is no one quite like Hammami, whose journey spans the Bible Belt of Alabama and the battlefields of Somalia. While reporting a cover story for the magazine about Hammami in 2010, I corresponded with him through an intermediary. His new memoir expands on the account he gave me.
By turns gripping and quixotic, the 127-page document offers fresh details about Hammami’s movements in Somalia and a rare glimpse into the experience of a Western recruit to militant jihad. He traces his unusual childhood in Daphne, Ala., as the son of a white Southern Baptist mother and a Syrian Muslim father. A gifted and popular high-school student, his conversion to Islam left him socially adrift and surrounded by his former vices — drugs and girls.