Messing with the Enemy

by Clint Watts

  Next, I wanted more information about the infighting among terrorists. Omar enjoyed describing how members of al-Shabaab failed to follow the strict Islamic law they professed. I wanted him to continue crapping on his old overlords. I wanted him to appear as American as possible, for him to seem like a foreign troublemaker to other members of al-Shabaab. The more Omar talked with Americans like an American, the more he discredited himself in jihadi circles and undermined his appeal to Western foreign fighters’ desiring to join Shabaab and al-Qaeda.

  My last objective, and definitely the toughest one to achieve, was to get Omar to admit that al-Shabaab and al-Qaeda were on the decline. No aspiring jihadi hopes to be the last recruit in a failing terrorist group. Omar was a terrorist, he had been in the fight, and a Western turncoat’s words carried far more weight with potential recruits than any American counter-radicalization program. If he trash-talked al-Qaeda, terrorists in the ranks and future terrorists waiting on the sidelines would listen.

  My first action, before pursuing any of these objectives: verify Omar Hammami as the real person behind the @abumamerican Twitter account. Omar had been on the run for many months, posting intermittently from the account, but journalists and naysayers who couldn’t get Hammami’s attention claimed that the account represented the work of an impostor, a young jihadi wannabe stereotypically sitting in a basement punching on a computer. The signaling tweet on January 3, 2013, proved to be the harbinger I was expecting. Omar came to life on January 5, and this time I was free to mess with him.

  Hammami’s Twitter kicked off 2013 like an insider’s tell-all book broadcast two sentences at a time. Each Omar tweet brought another salacious complaint against al-Shabaab and its dictator, Godane. Hammami claimed that Shabaab’s leaders reaped the spoils of war, leaving nothing for the people, and allowed the sale of the regional drug qat so as to tax a substance otherwise illegal under Islamic law. He went further, explaining how old al-Qaeda hands, like bin Laden’s former personal secretary, Fazul, had been killed off by Shabaab’s emir.

  “Fazul was told if u meet up with mukh robow u’ll become a bbc headline. He did so then he did become.” [Referring to Sheikh Muktar Robow, a deputy leader of Shabaab and rival of Godane]

  “Being aq was shunned until the last real op, fazul, was out of the pic. Then being aq became an oblig to be killed for.” Hammami asserted that Godane had avoided al-Qaeda until local challengers were killed off. Then, with Shabaab securely under his rule, Godane pushed for a formal, public alliance with al-Qaeda strengthening his personal connection to the terror group’s senior leaders in Pakistan and solidifying his control over Shabaab in Somalia.

  Hammami also explained why his plight over the past year needed to be posted on YouTube and discussed on Twitter. Jihadi forums—the debate-and-distribution platforms where real jihadi terrorists congregated online—censored him.

  “Amriki gave advice as amiir of the haraka’s lajna shura, they refused. He tried scholars, aq yemen, aq central, but nothing.”

  “He tried the jihadi media mafia but found them living in never-neverland.”

  Omar had been blocked from those very discussion boards that had helped inspire his radicalization and recruitment in Cairo before landing in Mogadishu. But on social media, no jihadi administrator could censor his rants. Curiously, Omar’s Twitter handle spoke at times in the third person, referring to Omar as “Amriki,” an Arabic transliteration of “American.” Arabic regional monikers were a common jihadi way of describing foreign fighters and their homelands, but it was odd for someone to refer to himself in the third person. Unless, of course, Omar wasn’t alone or was relaying answers to someone who managed his Twitter account from another device.

  That night, I powered up my laptop and began writing a blog post at Selectedwisdom.com detailing Hammami’s new disclosures. I would amplify and spread awareness of Hammami’s plight to both terrorists and counterterrorists, but, more important, I’d offer something for Omar to click on. I needed proof of life, that it was truly the American terrorist. I posted my Omar summary and went to bed, then woke up quite pleased with the outcome.

  “Clint watts: ‘i have a dream’ was a black man’s fantasy before it became reality. America was a mess b4 it became a menace.”

  “Clint re post 2: amriki suspects aq central are in his same sit on a grand strat level. To speak openly would be 2 shoot ones foot.”

  He had read my post. Omar was hooked, and now I knew I had him visiting my blog. I logged in to my Google Analytics account monitoring traffic to my website, and sure enough, the map displayed several hits from Somalia, all coming from mobile devices. I was one step closer to narrowing down Omar’s technical signature. Beyond that, I had a terrorist telling me about the inside baseball of al-Qaeda. He believed that al-Qaeda Central—its senior leaders—weren’t happy with Shabaab’s behavior. But al-Qaeda’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, couldn’t make a public statement disparaging its newest disobedient affiliate without embarrassing himself, having ushered in a franchise in Somalia that bin Laden never fully trusted or publicly embraced.

  Later that day, Omar dropped a new release. Another video detailing his plight. This one was a rerun, posted on YouTube. He again asserted that al-Shabaab was hunting him. He followed up shortly after with a document posted on the anonymous Pastebin website. The doc provided further details about the treachery inside Shabaab’s ranks. Omar narrated how Godane had killed off his deputies, al-Qaeda operatives, and dissenters Mafia style, jailed foreign fighters unjustly, and preyed on locals, particularly from lesser Somali clans.

  The document provided a dozen different ways for me to engage Hammami and repurpose his story. For me, it was another late night, but a fruitful one. I read the document and built my strategy. I’d take Hammami’s side in every claim he made, mirror his arguments with my own, and do a better write-up. Sometimes I’d ask questions in the blog post, hoping he would read and answer them on Twitter. Other times I’d deliberately get things wrong in his story, so that he would correct me, confirming that he was reading my writing. In both cases, I’d nudge him to publicly engage me so his terrorist supporters would see him palling around with a former U.S. government agent. I closed that night’s post like others, noting that, despite all the great information we were receiving from this Twitter account, we still had no idea whether it truly was Omar Hammami and not some impostor. Again, I posted late at night, and the results were almost immediate.

  “Clint watts, no one is providing u with info. The ummah and history have a right to know. Then we’ll mend our house and rise.”

  Again, just as in previous posts, the @abumamerican Twitter account called me out by name—exactly what I wanted. Even better, the account had posted two pictures. The first provided the verification to stop my naysayers: Omar, front and center, joined by two other foreign fighters, one a Somali British man and the other an Arab man. In his hands Omar held a piece of cardboard. Scribbled in black was a date, JANUARY 11 2013. Thank you, Omar!

  The second photo showed Omar atop a large wagon being pulled by his donkey. Married, with kids, Omar fancied himself now as both a purist resistance fighter for Islam and a man of the people. A sign of Hammami’s colliding worlds and confusing personas. At times, he’d yearn for his place among the great jihadi ideologues, and during other moments he seemed to yearn for America and Americans. My first step complete, Omar’s identity confirmed, I refined my strategy further for future engagements, based on what I saw in these two pictures.

  I began looking for those times when the Hammami account appeared to be tweeting in the first person. I didn’t mind getting scoops from his pals, but I preferred hanging out with Omar on Twitter, where I’d get more rapid and pure responses. Over the next few weeks, I decided the best time to get good engagement from him was during my early mornings. Half a world away, Omar would be on his phone during the late afternoon or early evening Mogadishu time. Instead of posting very late at night, as I had done previously,
I changed my pattern to match his, mirroring his high-engagement times so I could converse with him more quickly. Over the next few weeks, I’d write my blog posts the night before, hold them in draft format, and then head to bed. The next morning, as I fed my daughter a bowl of oatmeal, I’d plop my laptop on the counter and watch the Twitter feed in one panel and my Google Analytics account in a separate window.

  Ping! Omar posted his first tweet of the morning. I’d quickly post an article on my blog discussing Omar’s plight, then tweet the link out into the Twitter tornado. A couple of minutes would go by, I’d clean the kitchen, rinse some dishes, pour another cup of coffee, and then watch the Google Analytics map showing accounts around the world landing on my web address. Somalia would turn orange, and dots would begin emerging from the Horn of Africa. Hi, Omar, thanks for visiting.

  Two or three minutes later, Omar would start applauding or correcting my analysis with snarky tweets. I’d then examine the Somalia visitor data on my blog, and in the few minutes since I’d posted, there had been only one hit from Somalia. I repeated this process for a few months, and after several iterations I felt confident that I knew what type of phone Omar used and why he would write my name out in his tweets. Omar could access the internet, but he didn’t have apps, nor could he type the @ symbol, which his device didn’t have. Without being able to write my Twitter handle, he had to get my attention by spelling out my name.

  I didn’t hope to capture Omar Hammami, nor did I seek to turn him back to the good side. Omar was long gone, fully dedicated to his bogus jihadi dogma. No way he’d come back into American hands or admit he’d made a mistake by joining a terrorist group that now wanted to kill him. I didn’t want to persuade him, either; his conversations were working just fine. The audience watching our discussions—that was my target. American boys thinking about joining al-Qaeda, Somali Shabaab members distrustful of the Western recruits in the ranks, and Arab terrorists, their leaders, and their popular supporters who were once keen to recruit an American and now reeling from his disclosures.

  The CIA uses the acronym MICE, but I prefer CRIME. The letters describe the motivations and enticements an intelligence officer or law enforcement investigator uses to recruit an agent overseas or a street informant in America. They’re the reasons why people turn, or flip, why they begin reporting on a group they once declared allegiance to or betray an ally on behalf of their foe. C stands for compromise. Compromised people can be coerced into doing something they might not normally consider. A criminal charge, an outstanding arrest warrant, unpaid debts, a sick loved one who needs surgery—all provide avenues for convincing a person to provide assistance. I add R for revenge. Think Mandy Patinkin in The Princess Bride: “My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.” There may not be any other motivation that makes people as relentless in its pursuit. The unjust murder of a loved one, wrongful treatment by others, perceived injustice by a rival: revenge, once pursued, usually can be countered only by death. Ideology constitutes the I and represents the purest motivation for any action. Those driven by ideology always prove the hardest to flip and most difficult to stop. M should be in bold: money. It’s the most common reason for betrayal, and the flimsiest. Those incentivized by cash prove to be the easiest to recruit, and most likely to deceive or switch teams. Finally, the E is for ego. Fame and glory, the desire to be a hero, makes men do strange things. Empower and embrace the ego of a narcissist and he’ll be a cost-effective asset, a turncoat for good or evil, depending on the suitor.

  I went back to my notebook paper and sketched out a quick assessment of Omar Hammami’s motivations for revealing so much on Twitter. The most obvious motivation for his endless disclosures was compromise. The more Omar got his story into the public regarding al-Shabaab hunting him, the more likely he’d be to survive, gain protectors, and push Shabaab into a no-win situation. If the terrorists killed Hammami, they’d hurt their brand in the eyes of future recruits and international supporters. Furthermore, each Shabaab attempt to hunt Hammami and quell his supporters increased Omar’s revenge response. A war inside global jihad was what I wanted. I’d amplify any of Omar’s resentment and accentuate his quest for revenge.

  More subtle but still immediately apparent were Omar’s egotistical motivations. Hammami loved attention—loved it. He thought of himself as a future jihadi visionary, consistently sought to showcase his theological expertise, and pined for the attention of senior jihadis and well-known counterterror experts. Omar wanted to be famous, and I’d help him do that. In so doing, I’d undermine motivations others might have for heading off to Somalia and joining al-Shabaab.

  There were also topics I wanted to avoid when chatting with Omar. Hammami wanted to be an ideological expert, and he’d spent time studying and pontificating, developing his own vision for the future of global jihad. As a non-Muslim lacking any theological expertise, I risked empowering Omar by engaging in his religious rants and raising his profile among his supporters. I wouldn’t be able to convince him that he was wrong about his religion, and I stood to look quite stupid if I tried and failed. A second area I sought to avoid was money, specifically his financial situation. He had left America to join terrorists in one of the most impoverished countries in the world. Sitting in prosperous America, I didn’t want to glorify his financial sacrifice.

  I took the three motivations I wanted to amplify and then identified common ground I could make with Hammami for rapport building. He wanted to talk to me—that was obvious—but I didn’t want to speak with him strictly regarding terrorism. One heated debate would end our engagements. Persuading him to divulge more information or discuss his positions would mean first getting him to feel a deeper connection.

  Omar and I had backgrounds that were similar in many respects. He grew up outside Mobile, Alabama, and I, having grown up a similar distance from St. Louis, Missouri, watched the same television he did, studied the same books in school, saw the same movies, and played some of the same sports. His longing for home increased his desire to chat with me, reach for my discussions, and seek my approval.

  What made Omar appealing to Americans was that he walked and talked like an American, but this behavior also weakened his appeal among devout Islamists and jihadists. If he trashed al-Qaeda and al-Shabaab and joked it up with Americans on Twitter, he undermined his own appeal with Muslim communities whose affection he desired. Compromise, revenge, and ego—I would pursue these with Omar by playing to his American cultural tendencies. I’d write blog posts to amplify his disclosures and stroke his ego, then I’d sustain discussions through the nostalgia of America.

  Anytime Omar drifted to American jargon, I’d slide with him.

  “I c ur bikinis and raise u 4 wives in this life, 72 in next!” Omar tweeted in late January 2013, feeling strong with the increased following he had garnered on Twitter.

  I’d follow shortly after with “come on Omar, don’t tell me u did all this 4 the chicks, easier ways to meet women.”

  Mixed in between these lighthearted jabs would be debate over the future direction of jihad and terrorism. Hammami would read and critique. A tweet questioned why Hammami didn’t support other jihads in Africa, and his response was eerily prescient:

  “Syria is great. Many stages to pass b4 khilafah, and many ways things could go astray. But it’ll work out, and they have tabuuleh!”

  Omar was right. The Syrian civil war provided ample opportunity for young jihadis to achieve their dreams of state building and find the violence they so sought. Omar had opined on Syria and food, and there was my opportunity for common ground.

  “Omar, question for you. Applebees, TGI Fridays or Chili’s? You pick.” I thought of some food options I imagined he might miss from Somalia. Omar’s answer didn’t disappoint.

  “I’ll answer 4 him: give me dat baby back, baby back, chiiliies *halal* baby back ribs, w/barbecue sauce.”

  After I fired American culture questions to Omar and he responded, I noticed that
Omar’s Twitter adversaries would begin tweeting in Arabic, pointing out to the global jihadi community that Omar was not like them—less devout, impure, and chatting with the enemy.

  “Omar, lunch question. Buffalo wings, nachos or pizza? U pick,” I posted.

  Omar quickly replied, “hot wings.”

  Every week, I’d post a question or two on food. “Tonight for dinner Omar, what do u think? Chicken soft tacos, Caesar salad or Chinese take out (all halal of course).”

  His response was as expected: “sucker 4 chinese, Didn’t read the bio? General tsao, sweet sour, shrimp fried rice, baby corns n veg.”

  I imagined Omar drooling as he typed his response on his cell phone. The next time I passed a Chinese buffet in Boston, I snapped a quick picture. When I returned home, I uploaded the picture to my blog and blasted it to Omar: “halal BBQ style.” He clicked on the picture, again giving me a Google Analytics signature for his mobile device, and followed with a response.

  “Drool. Mmm,” Omar replied to the tantalizing photo. “Gonna eat a chicken my wife slaughtered and cooked right now.”

  “U do that. I’ll stick with the chicken wings” was my answer to Omar’s post. Then he came back later with an evaluation of his wife’s cooking: “Omg! It was old and free range! Rubber! The one last week was close to the real thing though.”

  I sustained this American banter with Omar, making him nostalgic about his childhood back in the States. “Omar, this morning’s breakfast challenge, u pick Dunkin Donuts or homemade Biscuit with raspberry jelly?” Because I’d served in the Army in the South, I figured the question might entice him.

  “That’s a tuffy. Can I call a friend?” he asked.