{"id":1471,"date":"2011-05-14T21:30:32","date_gmt":"2011-05-15T01:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/?p=1471"},"modified":"2011-05-14T21:51:21","modified_gmt":"2011-05-15T01:51:21","slug":"what-turned-a-nice-alabama-born-southern-baptist-boy-into-a-wild-eyed-somali-terrorist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/2011\/05\/what-turned-a-nice-alabama-born-southern-baptist-boy-into-a-wild-eyed-somali-terrorist.html","title":{"rendered":"What turned a nice Alabama-born Southern Baptist boy into a wild-eyed Somali terrorist?"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, what\u00a0could possibly turn\u00a0a nice Southern Baptist boy into a jihadi terrorist? That’s what the stunned residents of Daphne, Alabama, are asking themselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Omar Hammami at age 15<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On May 12,\u00a0the local\u00a0high school’s former\u00a0sophomore class president, Omar Hammami,\u00a0 proclaimed in an African\u00a0summit meeting of Islamist extremists outside of Mogadishu, Somalia, that the death of Osama Bin Laden will not weaken the group\u2019s plans against the United States, but rather it has strengthened the terrorists\u2019 resolve.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
In Somalia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cHammami warned that al-Qaida\u2019s war against the United States and its allies will continue and will not end until there is an Islamic victory,\u201d reports Jim Kouri.<\/p>\n

Hammami, who\u00a0has taken to calling\u00a0himself \u201cAbu Mansur Al Ameriki,\u201d is a leader of the al-Qaida splinter group al-Shabaab. The summit meeting was themed \u201cWe are all Osama\u201d and held in Afgoye, a small town on the outskirts of the Somali capital.<\/p>\n

After Hammami’s proclamation on the Arab TV channel al-Jazeera, Yemen\u2019s rebel al-Qaida leader Nasir al-Wahishi echoed\u00a0Hammami’s sentiments. In a statement posted on an Islamic web site, al-Wahishi wrote that \u201cthe torch of jihad is brighter after bin Laden\u2019s death at the hands of infidels.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Omar as a 13-year-old Southern Baptist summer camper<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So, what happened to\u00a0this teenager who regularly attended Baptist summer camp and was one of the most popular kids at his high school?<\/p>\n

\u201cOn a warm, cloudy day in the fall of 1999, the town of Daphne, Alabama, stirred to life,\u201d wrote Andrea Elliott in the New York Times <\/em>in 2010. \u201cThe high-school band came pounding down Main Street, past the post office and the library and Christ the King Church.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn a float bearing leaders of the student government, a giddy mop-haired kid tossed candy to the crowd. Omar Hammami had every right to flash his magnetic smile. He had just been elected president of his sophomore class. He was dating a luminous blonde, one of the most sought-after girls in school.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a 15-year-old, he had remarkable charisma. Hammami was every bit as Alabaman as his mother, a warm, plain-spoken woman who sprinkles her conversation with blandishments like \u2018sugar\u2019 and \u2018darlin\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
After joining the jihadis<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Now\u00a025 years old, Hammami grew up in\u00a0the Mobile suburb. His mother teaches elementary school. She is a U.S. native still active in the church where she took\u00a0Omar as he grew up. His father was a Syrian-born Muslim and\u00a0a civil engineer at the Department of Transportation.<\/p>\n

On Fridays, Omar occasionally went to the mosque with his father. On Sundays, Omar often attended church with his mother and sister. Debra told the kids to keep their church-going a secret from their father. The Hammami home remained culturally Muslim. Inscriptions from the Koran decorated the walls and pork was forbidden.<\/p>\n

In school, Hammami was an outgoing boy who in an assignment described the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City as “stupid.”\u00a0He wrote,\u00a0“I wish violence would vanish clear from the Earth.”<\/p>\n

But at age 15, he visited Syria and told friends how his male cousins shared a “cohesiveness of brotherhood.” Back in Alabama, he gave up Friday night football games to attend the mosque more regularly with his dad. He\u00a0began\u00a0offering Muslim prayers in the school library.<\/p>\n

In 2000, during his junior year, the subject in class turned to Osama bin Laden, who had claimed responsibility for U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne boy suggested that Bin Laden should be shot dead,\u201d reports Elliott.<\/p>\n

“What if I said that about Billy Graham?” Hammami demanded.<\/p>\n

“Billy Graham is a peaceable preacher,” the boy said. “Osama bin Laden is a terrorist.”<\/p>\n

“One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter,” Hammami replied.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Hammami today<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In class, Hammami swore at a teacher because she was Jewish and tried to choke a student who interrupted him as he was reciting the Koran. His high grades allowed him to skip his senior year and enroll at the University of South Alabama. There he became president of the Muslim Student Association. When the U.S. was attacked on September 11, 2001, local reporters called him for comment. He told them, “It’s difficult for me to believe a Muslim did this.”<\/p>\n

He dropped out of college and set out to master Arabic. In 2005, he joined a Muslim community in Toronto, Ontario, and married a friend’s 19-year-old sister-in-law.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThrough an Internet web site and bulletin board, Hammami met a fellow American jihadist, Daniel Maldonado, who had also left the U.S.,\u201d writes Kouri. \u201cEventually the two men secretly made plans to become jihadis.”<\/p>\n

In 2005,\u00a0Hammami and\u00a0his wife\u00a0moved to Egypt. There, she gave birth to a daughter. Then, abruptly, \u201cWithout telling his family, Hammami traveled to Somalia where he joined al-Shabaab,\u201d writes Kouri.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Speaking this week on al-Jazeera<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In October 2007, he appeared on al-Jazeera, the Arabic-language news network. A scarf concealed half his face, as he began, in English, “Oh, Muslims of America, take into consideration the situation in Somalia \u2026” which at the time was occupied by Ethiopian troops.<\/p>\n

In 2008,\u00a0he\u00a0took credit on al-Jazeera for\u00a0an ambush on an Ethiopian convoy. An al-Shabab video in 2009 shows Hammami leading fighters and lecturing recruits. And now, he has shown up as a spokesman at the summit.<\/p>\n

Back in Alabama, Debra Hammami is at a loss to explain what happened to her boy. She\u00a0told a reporter that\u00a0he is “in the wrong hands.”<\/p>\n

His father \u201ctalks about his son the way a parent talks about a child lost to a cult,\u201d writes Elliot. \u201cTerrorism, he says, \u2018goes against everything I taught him.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, what\u00a0could possibly turn\u00a0a nice Southern Baptist boy into a jihadi terrorist? That’s what the stunned residents of Daphne, Alabama, are asking themselves.\u00a0 On May 12,\u00a0the local\u00a0high school’s former\u00a0sophomore class president, Omar Hammami,\u00a0 proclaimed in an African\u00a0summit meeting of Islamist extremists outside of Mogadishu, Somalia, that the death of Osama Bin Laden will not weaken…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[115,16,71,144],"tags":[378,381,176],"class_list":["post-1471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-baptist-2","category-islam","category-news","category-osama-bin-laden","tag-islam","tag-news","tag-omar-hammami"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat turned a nice Alabama-born Southern Baptist boy into a wild-eyed Somali terrorist? - On the Front Lines of the Culture Wars<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/2011\/05\/what-turned-a-nice-alabama-born-southern-baptist-boy-into-a-wild-eyed-somali-terrorist.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What turned a nice Alabama-born Southern Baptist boy into a wild-eyed Somali terrorist? - On the Front Lines of the Culture Wars\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"So, what\u00a0could possibly turn\u00a0a nice Southern Baptist boy into a jihadi terrorist? That’s what the stunned residents of Daphne, Alabama, are asking themselves.\u00a0 On May 12,\u00a0the local\u00a0high school’s former\u00a0sophomore class president, Omar Hammami,\u00a0 proclaimed in an African\u00a0summit meeting of Islamist extremists outside of Mogadishu, Somalia, that the death of Osama Bin Laden will not weaken…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/2011\/05\/what-turned-a-nice-alabama-born-southern-baptist-boy-into-a-wild-eyed-somali-terrorist.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"On the Front Lines of the Culture Wars\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-05-15T01:30:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-05-15T01:51:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/files\/2011\/05\/oma2.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"What turned a nice Alabama-born Southern Baptist boy into a wild-eyed Somali terrorist? - On the Front Lines of the Culture Wars","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/2011\/05\/what-turned-a-nice-alabama-born-southern-baptist-boy-into-a-wild-eyed-somali-terrorist.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"What turned a nice Alabama-born Southern Baptist boy into a wild-eyed Somali terrorist? - On the Front Lines of the Culture Wars","og_description":"So, what\u00a0could possibly turn\u00a0a nice Southern Baptist boy into a jihadi terrorist? 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