Ibrahim al-Afghani | |
|---|---|
| ابراهيم الافغاني | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | c. 1960 Hargeisa, Somalia |
| Died | 20 June 2013 Barawa, Somalia |
| Alma mater | University of the District of Columbia |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |  Islamic Courts Union Al-Qaeda |
Ibrahim al-Afghani (c. 1960 - 20 June 2013), also known as Ibrahim Haji Jama Mee'aad, was a prominent member of Somalia's Al-Shabaab, an insurgent group fighting Somalia's Transitional Federal Government. He hailed from Habr Awal, a sub-clan of the Isaaq clan.
Afghani was born circa 1960 in Hargeisa, one of seven children in a religious family. He attended Farah Omaar High School, where his classmates recall him being devoutly religious and knowledgeable of Islam. During his years in high school, he was part of a small group called "Al-Wahdat al-Shabaab al-Islam", which advocated for Salafism and a pure interpretation of Islamic law. [1] Afghani left Somalia in 1981 to study in the United States, where he was a student at the University of the District of Columbia. He spent much of his time at the Islamic Center of Washington.
Sometime in 1987 or 1988, Afghani met Abdullah Azzam, a well known Palestinian cleric who was raising money from across the world to finance the Mujahideen in the Soviet-Afghan War. In late 1988, following the expiration of his student visa in the United States, Afghani traveled to Egypt, then Pakistan and then made his way to the city of Peshawar, on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Shortly after Azzam's death in November 1989, Afghani returned to Somalia. Following the toppling of the Somali government in 1991, Afghani and a few other Islamists founded a militant training camp in the port city of Kismayo, which they called "Camp Khalid ibn Walid". Within three months, over a thousand men, many of them affiliated with Al-Itihad Al-Islamiya (AIAI) had been enlisted in the camp, prompting Afghani and other jihadists to open more camps across southern Somalia. He officially became a fighter for AIAI in 1991 and fought with them in the frontlines against Ethiopian troops in the 1990s. By 1996, AIAI had effectively disintegrated into various splinter groups, following a leadership disagreement on whether the group should participate in violent and militant action. [2]
In 1998, Afghani met Ahmed Godane, who was studying and training in Afghanistan at the time. [3]
In 2002, Godane and al-Afghani travelled to the Somali Region of Ethiopia to start a new jihadist group. During their time there, Afghani, Godane and their fighters staged an ambush on a convoy of khat traffickers returning from Somaliland to Ethiopia, resulting in the deaths of the traffickers and the seizure of approximately $1 million in the heist. Ethiopian authorities apprehended most of the assailants, but Godane and al-Afghani managed to evade capture and within a couple months were able to fled to southern Somalia, which had no functioning government at the time. By late 2002, using the wealth from the heist, Godane and Afghani began to be active in the Islamic Courts Union in Mogadishu. In 2005, a new training camp named 'Salahuddin Muaskar' had been established, with Godane as its leader and Afghani being a senior leader and trainer. [4]
Afghani formerly held positions as the first deputy leader of Al-Shabaab and was the head of economy and finance, [5] and the Emir of Juba and the administration in Kismayo. [6] [7]
He was rumored to have been killed in a Predator drone attack on an al-Shabaab training camp south of Kismayo, Somalia on 25 June 2011, [8] but he survived and was reported to have resigned from Al-Shabaab in December 2011. [9]
In April 2013, an open letter was circulated on extremist websites reportedly penned by Afghani to Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, criticising Godane's leadership. On 29 June 2013, al-Shabaab announced that they had killed Afghani during a gun battle on 20 June 2013 when he resisted arrest, but family members, including Afghani's sister, said that he had been arrested and then executed. [10]
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