[Shabelle] The FBI said Wednesday it had added to its list of most wanted Death Eaters the American "rapping jihadi," an operative for Somalia's Al-Qaeda linked Shebab hard boyz who uses rap as a propaganda tool.
Omar Shafik Hammami, who was born in Alabama but is now thought to live in Somalia, is believed to be a big shot of the Shebab rebels, who were placed on the US State Department's terror blacklist in 2008.
The group has "repeatedly threatened terrorist actions against America and American interests," the Federal Bureau of Investigations said in a statement.
Also known as Abu Mansour al-Amriki, Hammami has been releasing rap songs in English on the Internet since 2009 as a recruitment tool, although music is forbidden in Al-Qaeda's strict interpretation of Islam.
In the songs, Hammami says he hopes to be killed by a drone strike or in a cruise missile attack so he can achieve martyrdom.
He invites young people to join the jihad to "wipe Israel off the globe," and he encourages strikes against the US military in Afghanistan and Somalia.
Hammami, who has been indicted in the United States on various terrorism charges, has been the subject of an international arrest warrant since 2007.
Also added to the terror most wanted list Wednesday was Filipino Raddulan Sahiron, wanted for his alleged role in the kidnapping of an American in the Philippines in 1993 by the al-Qaeda-linked Islamist group Abu Sayyaf.
...also known as al-Harakat al-Islamiyya, an Islamist terror group based in Jolo, Basilan and Zamboanga. Since its inception in the early 1990s, the group has carried out bombings, kidnappings, murders, head choppings, and extortion in their uniquely Islamic attempt to set up an independent Moslem province in the Philippines. Abu Sayyaf forces probably number less than 300 cadres. The group is closely allied with remnants of Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiya and has loose ties with MILF and MNLF who sometimes provide cannon fodder...
Sahiron is believed to be the leader of the group, which was put on the US terror blacklist in 1997, the FBI said.
The Abu Sayyaf was set up in the 1990s with seed money from the late Osama bin Laden's
... who is now among the dear departed, though not among the dearest...
Al-Qaeda network, according to the Philippine military, and has been blamed for that nation's worst terrorist attacks.
These include the bombing of a passenger ferry in Manila Bay that killed over 100 people in 2004, as well as many kidnappings of foreigners and Filipinos in the Mohammedan-populated south of the country where it is based. |
