• Alabama native Omar Hammami said he was attacked in a tea shop
• Posted pictures showing blood on his neck and a dark blood-stained t-shirt
• Hammami blamed Al-Qaida-linked group al-Shabab for the attack

An American jihadi in Somalia was shot in the neck as he sat in a tea shop in a supposed failed assassination attempt – and promptly tweeted a picture of his bloody neck wound.

Omar Hammami – a native of Alabama who is now on the FBI’s most-wanted list – also claimed after the attack that the leader of Islamic extremist rebels is starting a civil war.

The jihadi believes his assassination attempt was at the hands of al Qaeda-linked group al Shabab – which he joined in 2006. He fell out with the group last year and since then claims there have been numerous attempts made on his life.

He posted four pictures today, one of which shows his face with blood on his neck and a dark blood-stained t-shirt and said: ‘Just been shot in neck by shabab assassin. Not critical yet.’

Hammami is one of the two most notorious Americans in overseas jihadi groups after moving from Alabama to Somalia around 2006.

He fought alongside the group for years while gaining fame for posting YouTube videos of jihadi rap songs in the hope of attracting young American Muslims.

But he fell out with al Shabab and has engaged in a public fight with the group over the last year.

Since then, Hammami has been a thorn in the group’s side after accusing its leaders of living extravagant lifestyles with the taxes fighters collect from Somali residents.

He first expressed fear for his life in an extraordinary web video in March 2012 that publicized his rift with al Shabab.

He said he received another death threat earlier this year that was not carried out.

Hammami tweeted late yesterday. On Friday he wrote that the leader of al Shabab was sending in forces from multiple directions. ‘We are few but we might get back up. abu zubayr has gone mad. he’s starting a civil war,’ Hammami posted.

Another Hammami grievance is that the Somali militant leaders sideline foreign militants inside al Shabab and are concerned only about fighting in Somalia, not globally.

Hammami’s comment today about a civil war could refer to violence between those two groups.

Al Shabab criticized Hammami publicly in a December Internet statement, saying his video releases are the result of personal grievances that stem from a ‘narcissistic pursuit of fame’.

The statement said al Shabab was morally obligated to stamp out his ‘obstinacy’.

The U.S. named Hammami on its Most Wanted terrorist list in March and is offering a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture. Al Shabab fighters are not eligible for the reward.

Along with Adam Gadahn in Pakistan – a former Osama bin Laden spokesman – Hammami is one of the two most notorious Americans in jihad groups.

Also known as Abu Mansour al-Amriki or ‘the American’, Hammami has been releasing rap songs in English on the internet since 2009 even though music is forbidden in Al-Qaeda’s strict interpretation of Islam.

Despite the threat against his life, Hammami said in an interview with Wired earlier this month that he’s staying put and that he ‘believes in attacking U.S. interests everywhere. No turning back.’

From an undisclosed location in Somalia, he said he grows vegetables, helps his wives around the house, and trolls his one-time colleagues in al Shebab on Twitter.

He also almost taunted his al Shabab enemies by boasting they could not come after him.

He told Wired that he believes his Twitter campaign has trolled Shebab so successfully that it’s insulated him from retaliation.

‘They know that the first bullets are the nail in their coffin now that everything is in the open, shabab would lose aq [al-Qaida] support and support of soldiers and middle level.’

He grew up in Daphne, Alabama, a community of 20,000 outside Mobile. He is the son of a Christian mother and a Syrian-born Muslim father.

He once called himself ‘a walking contradiction from massively different backgrounds who is seriously passionate about what he believes in, but feels he has to go about doing it while laughing at almost everything along the way.’

Hammami regularly chats on Twitter with a group of American terrorism experts, conversations that are so colloquial and so infused with American slang that many in the counter-terror field have formed a type of digital bond with Hammami.

After Hammami publicized the assassination attempt, one of his Twitter followers, a counter-terrorism expert from Canada, wrote that Hammami had nine lives.

Hammami responded with an apparent reference to the movie The Blues Brothers. ‘I’m on a mission from God.’ Minus the blues music.’

He told wired in his Twitter interview that he is just waiting for his time to come, writing: ‘I figure i can’t do much but wait 4 my time. I’m surrounded by enemies. Drones don’t have borders. Just kickin’ it w/family till then.’

Source:- Daily Mail

Comments

comments