U.S. terrorist Omar Hammami who spent year in Toronto: 'no turning back'

In this 2011 file photo, American-born Islamist militant Omar Hammami, right, and deputy leader of Al Shabab Sheik Mukhtar Abu Mansur Robow, left, sit under a banner which reads "Allah is Great" during a news conference of the militant group at a farm in southern Mogadishu's Afgoye district in Somalia (AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh)

When Osama bin Laden wanted to share his thoughts with the world, he would videotape himself, and though a network of couriers, get that tape into the hands a broadcaster who was willing to air the clips.

Twitter has given at least one self-proclaimed enemy of America a more immediate way to communicate.

Born and raised in Alabama by a Southern Baptist mother and Syrian-born father, Omar Hammami moved to Mogadishu in 2006 and fast became one of the most visible faces of Somalia’s war. Seven years later, Hammami is using social media to threaten America, and have exchanges with analysts, academics and journalists alike.

Hammani, aka @abuamerican, has roughly 1,100 followers on Twitter and has posted some 1,200 messages on the site. He recently agreed to an interview with Wired magazine, using Twitter’s direct message function.

“I believe in attacking U.S. interests everywhere,” he told the magazine over the course a week-long correspondence. “No 2nd thoughts and no turning back.’

Remembering 9/11, he wrote his neighbours “acted as if they would not fix my car unless I denounced bin Laden and praised George Bush. 9/11 simply made me more politically [conscious], not knee jerk tho.”

Terror, he told the magazine, was never “my ultimate goal. jihad was my obligation and the nwo” — that is, the New World Order — “my enemy.”

Last month the U.S. placed a $5 million bounty on Hammami’s head.

The Star’s Michelle Shephard wrote last May about Hammami’s online biography, in which he remembered a year spent in Toronto in 2004. Hammami’s year in Toronto came after he converted to Islam and quit university in 2002, dashing his father’s dream that he would become a surgeon.

READ MORE: $5 million bounty for American-Tim Hortons-loving-jihadi

Rick Westhead is a foreign affairs writer at the Star. He was based in India as the Star’s South Asia bureau chief from 2008 until 2011 and reports on international aid and development. Follow him on Twitter @rwesthead

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TGIF and terrorism's theatre of the absurd

TGIF and terrorism's theatre of the absurd

Time for another installment of Terrorism's Theatre of the Absurd:

For gamers: "Muslim Mali," which pits Islamic militants against the French Air Force in Mali is reportedly taking Internet jihadi forums by storm. And hey, it's a win-win, even if you lose, you supposedly get a message that says "Congratulations, you have been martyred." Foreign Policy's National Security Reporter John Hudson tried the game so you don't have to.

What terror roundup is complete without the rantings of one of the most famous American jihadists - Omar Hammami, aka: Abu Amriki. He is the Alabama native who spent a year in Toronto - long enough to fall in love with Tim Hortons - before joining the fight in Somalia. He reportedly communicates through Twitter, although there has been some doubt as to whether it is really him. Lately, his tweets have been about as exciting - and frequent - as the teenager who wants to tell you about the bagel she had at lunch, or when she's off for a mani-pedi.

Don't bother following "him" on Twitter, but watch for analysis by Clint Watts on his blog Selected Wisdom or J.M. Berger at Intelwire. They have the patience to communicate with him and read the tweets. Berger says he is convinced it is Hammami.

Amid all the babble, there are some interesting nuggets of information that may shed light on Somalia's Al Qaeda group, Al Shabab, which Berger and Watts highlight.

Earlier this month, Yemen's Al Qaeda branch released its 10th edition of the English-language "Inspire" magazine. The much-ridiculed publication known as Al Qaeda's Cosmo, follows a similar format from past editions despite a new editorial board, including some self-help hints, such as avoiding getting petrol on yourself when you're torching cars. Now you know.

And for your weekend read, an update to our blog about Yemen's newest museum - to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, by Saleh. The intrepid Sanaa-based journalist Adam Baron, chewed some khat and got a tour, writing about his adventure and Saleh's "hot pants."

 

Michelle Shephard is the Toronto Star's National Security correspondent and author of "Decade of Fear: Reporting from Terrorism's Grey Zone." She is a three-time recepient of Canada's National Newspaper Award. Follow her on Twitter @shephardm

 

 

Yemen hostage plea

This is heartbreaking:

 

It's Austrian hostage Dominik Neubauer, a 26-year-old Arabic student who was kidnapped along with a Finnish couple in Sanaa, Yemen, last December. He says on the short video, speaking in English and German, that he will be killed in seven days if ransom is not paid to the Yemeni tribe holding him. The video was posted Feb. 21.

"Mom, dad, Lucas, Angela, I love you more than anything. Up until now I am in good health," he says according to a translation by Reuters, as a single tear rolls down his cheek.

Austrian Foreign Ministery spokesperson Martin Weiss told The Associated Press that the video was the "first proof of life." There is no news on the Finnish couple.

There are many questions about the kidnappings - which are not uncommon in Yemen, but rarer in the capital. Tribal kidnappings in general have historically been hospitable affairs, where hostages are treated as guests as they're used as bargaining chips.

Of course much has changed since the emergence of Yemen's Al Qaeda branch and Yemeni government officials say they believe that Neubauer and his two friends were sold to Al Qaeda members (or allied Ansar al-Sharia) and transfered south of Sanaa to the town of al-Manaseh. As Iona Craig, (a friend of Neubauer's) reported, there was a ground assault in the area last month which the government claimed was an attempt to free the hostages.

 Craig wrote on Twitter last week: "The whole idea of a 'friendly Yemeni tribal kidnapping' has just gone out the window in the one minute seven seconds of that video."    

 

Michelle Shephard is the Toronto Star's National Security correspondent and author of "Decade of Fear: Reporting from Terrorism's Grey Zone." She is a three-time recepient of Canada's National Newspaper Award. Follow her on Twitter @shephardm

 

 

Yemen's new museum - to former President Saleh, by Saleh

A cardboard cutout of President Ali Abdullah Saleh hangs by a noose over the anti-government protest camp, "Change Square" in Sanaa, Yemen on Feb. 24, 2011. Saleh was pushed from power a year later. (Michelle Shephard/Toronto Star)


Egypt's former president Hosni Mubarak was given a life sentence for his role in the deaths of hundreds of protesters - a conviction that was overturned last month. He remains in custody until his retrial.

Libya's Moammar Gadhafi faced a brutal end. Tunisia's former president escaped to Saudi Arabia. Syria's Bashar Assad clings to power in a conflict that the Toronto Star's Paul Watson brought home in horrific detail in his series of reports from Aleppo.

Yemen? Well, as the two-year anniversary of the March 18 massacre nears (the day government snipers fired on civilian protesters from rooftops, killing 52) former President Ali Abdullah Saleh has reportedly opened a museum - to honour himself. Al Arabiya News reports that the museum documents his 33 years in power, including a display of some of the clothes he was wearing when he was injured in a June 2011 assassination attempt.

The Yemen Post asks, "one is left to wonder what Yemenis will make of this rather extraordinary display."

The museum is expected to open to the public soon.

Michelle Shephard is the Toronto Star's National Security correspondent and author of "Decade of Fear: Reporting from Terrorism's Grey Zone." She is a three-time recepient of Canada's National Newspaper Award. Follow her on Twitter @shephardm

PHOTO: Valentine's Day in Yemen

A boy looks on as he stands with his father with a rose placed in his belt while they shop for gifts on Valentine's Day in Sanaa, Yemen, Feb. 14. (Mohamed al-Sayaghi/Reuters)

Yemen's family wars

With attention focused on the Syria and the struggles of post-revolutionary governments in Libya, Egypt and Tunisia, there hasn't been much information on Yemen's state of affairs. Which is why it's great to get some insightful reports this week from the Brookings Doha Center, the Washington Post's Sudarsan Raghavan and scholar and author Gregory Johnsen writing in The National newspaper (Johnsen's book on Yemen, The Last Refuge, was just released this week in the U.K. Highly recommend.)

This was a video photojournalist Jim Rankin shot from our travels in Sanaa last year - a lot of uncertainty at the time:

 

 

According to Raghavan, as many had predicted, Yemen's three most influential families "continue to cast a large shadow over the political transition." He writes:

"Unlike leaders of other nations altered by the Arab Spring revolutions, Yemen’s elites were neither jailed nor exiled, and they have remained inside the country, free to operate as they will.

The continuity has helped prevent Yemen from descending into a Syria-like civil war or erupting into the violent political turmoil seen in Egypt and Tunisia. But the elites’ lingering influence has also impeded Yemen’s progress, say activists, analysts and Western diplomats."

Johnsen's take is even more bleak: "Yemen is a broken country and no one - not the US, Saudi Arabia or any of the varied Yemeni factions - has the strength to put it back together again." As Johnsen notes, we are halfway through what was supposed to be a two-year political transition period. "(O)ne year left. The clock is ticking."

Brookings' Deputy Director Ibrahim Sharqieh (on Twitter: @sharqieh) outlines steps required to ensure a successful national reconciliation period, including providing a "full account of offenses committed under (former President Ali Abdullah) Saleh's rule."

"Avoiding the past because it is painful or controversial will only complicate the process of reconciliation and lead to instability in the future," Sharqieh writes. Here's the full 36-page report: http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2013/02/11-yemen-national-reconciliation-sharqieh.

 

Michelle Shephard is the Toronto Star's National Security correspondent and author of "Decade of Fear: Reporting from Terrorism's Grey Zone." She is a three-time recepient of Canada's National Newspaper Award. Follow her on Twitter @shephardm