{{An American extremist in Somalia is fighting former comrades in the Al Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab jihadist group, in what he says may be his final stand, he writes.}}<\/p>\n
Alabama-born Omar Hamami \u2014 better known as Al-Amriki or “the American” \u2014 once fought alongside the hardline Al-Shabaab in Somalia, but last year fell out with the fighters who now want to kill him.<\/p>\n
He is also wanted by the US government, who have placed a $5 million bounty on his head and is listed on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list.<\/p>\n
“We were forced to fight in self-defence and killed three and wounded others,” he wrote in a message on Twitter, posted late Monday.<\/p>\n
“May not find another chance to Tweet but just remember what we said and what we stood for. God kept me alive to deliver the message to the ummah (community).”<\/p>\n
Hamami, 28, moved to Somalia in 2006 and began to work for Al-Shabaab recruiting young trainees through his English-language rap songs and videos, but later split from the main wing of the militant group.<\/p>\n
“They raided our houses and took our stuff, and said they found condoms, alcohol, and documents,” he added, writing from an undisclosed location in Somalia. “Their goal is to kill us regardless of reason.”<\/p>\n
Last week, he claimed Al-Shabaab gunmen tried to assassinate him while he was drinking tea in a cafe, posting a photograph of himself dripping with blood from where he said the pistol bullet grazed his throat.<\/p>\n
“They are sending forces from multiple directions,” he wrote last week. “We are few but might get back up.”<\/p>\n
Born in 1984 to a Syrian-Muslim father and a white Protestant mother, Hamami was raised as a Christian but began to feel estranged from his upbringing as a teenager before moving to Somalia.<\/p>\n
“‘I’m on a mission from God’, minus the blues music”, he wrote last week, an apparent reference to the 1980 Blues Brothers film, an American musical comedy.<\/p>\n
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{{An American extremist in Somalia is fighting former comrades in the Al Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab jihadist group, in what he says may be his final stand, he writes.}} Alabama-born Omar Hamami \u2014 better known as Al-Amriki or “the American” \u2014 once fought alongside the hardline Al-Shabaab in Somalia, but last year fell out with the fighters […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-7514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7514\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7514"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=7514"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=7514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}