Washington allocated 10 million dollars for information about him.. Who is Abu Ubeida, the leader of Al-Shabaab Movement?
A series of terrorist attacks launched by Al-Shabaab in Somalia were a major reason for the United States’ action. The United States announced an increase in the reward for information leading Washington to the whereabouts of a number of Al-Shabaab leaders, amounting to $10 million per leader. The US State Department confirmed that it is offering this huge reward in order to obtain information that would enable it to disrupt the financial mechanisms of the terrorist movement linked to Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, in addition to the leader of the movement, Ahmad Omar, known as “Abu Ubaida”. The American State Department confirmed that “Abu Ubaidah” has led the movement since September 2014, and he was classified in 2015 as a “global terrorist”. Who is he?
Birth and origin
Born in 1970 in the Ethiopian town of Qlavou near the Somali province of Hiiraan, Ahmed Omar, known as “Abu Ubeida”, spent his childhood in the refugee camps in Hiiraan Province after fleeing with his family to Somalia because of the Ogaden War that broke out in 1977. He studied Sharia and Linguistic Sciences in the rings of mosques in one of the camps in Mogadishu and Kismaayo. After the collapse of Siad Barre’s military regime in 1991, Abu Obeida entered the training camps of the Islamic Union Group, like thousands of young Somalis. He received training at the camp of the city of Marka, the capital of Lower Shabelle State. He then moved to Kismaayo and participated in the first battle between the Islamic Union and the militia of General Mohamed Farah Aidid.
After the defeat of the Islamic State and the fall of Kismayo to Aidid, Abu Ubeida moved among other terrorist elements to the town of Tubli, located on the border between Somalia and Kenya. While in Kismaayo, Abu Obeida was introduced to the leadership of Islamic organizations in the city, where he became a member of Ras Kamboni Group, a faction within the Islamic Courts Union led by Ahmed Madoubi, the head of the Juba Land administration. In 2003, Abu Ubeida began recruiting young men for fighting, and he used the Al-Huda School in Kismaayo as a center for his activities.
Involvement in armed movements
In 2007, he was appointed as the movement’s representative in the regions of Juba, following the collapse of the Islamic Courts, as a reward to him for his previous efforts and his dedication to the leadership of the movement and its jihadist project, according to those close to him. He then joined the College of Islamic Studies at the University of Science and Technology in Yemen through its office in Somalia, but he preferred to join the Armed Islamic Movement and did not complete the last stage of his studies because of his connection with the movement’s administrative affairs. At this stage, he led efforts in Kismaayo to explain the vision of the Al-Shabaab Mujahideen movement, which rejects the project of the Alliance for the Liberation of Somalia led by former Somali President Sheik Ahmed. Abu Obeida also participated in the dismantling of Colonel Berri Hairale’s militia in mid-2008, which led to the movement’s takeover of Kismaayo in August 2008, a powerful military and political blow to the Transitional Somali Government headed by Nur Adde. In 2009, Abu Ubeida rose to prominence as governor of Bay and Bakool states in southwestern Somalia, and close associates of the man say he demonstrated talent in the mobilization and fieldoperations.
American rewards
Abu Ubeida strongly supported his predecessor Godane in his intellectual struggle with Ibrahim Haji, known as Ibrahim Afganan, whose group was liquidated in June 2013, and seven months earlier appointed Ahmed Omar as governor of all the states affiliated with the movement, a function of the minister of internal affairs, which meant he had wide influence within the movement, on June 17. Abu Ubeida assumed the leadership of Al-Shabaab after the assassination of its former leader, Ahmed Abdi Godane “Abu Zubayr,” in a US raid in September 2014. The United States announced a $10 million reward for information leading to the location of Abu Ubeida, his deputy, Mahd Karate, and Jihad Mustafa, especially since the latter is a US citizen.
