Are you familiar with the Muslim terrorist from Daphne?

[Syrinx]

I was browsing Wikipedia earlier, and stumbled upon this.

I think I've heard of this guy before, but I had no clue that he was an native Alabamian.

He's probably the only Muslim terrorist in the world that calls his grandmother "Maw Maw."

Isn't it kind of ironic that this guy, Abu Mansoor al-Amriki, half-Syrian, was the most popular kid in his class, in a place that has a reputation for being hostile to outsiders? And isn't it doubly-ironic that that kid apparently went crazy and joined one of the most brutal and violent causes in the world?

I think the article is interesting.

ON A WARM, cloudy day in the fall of 1999, the town of Daphne, Ala., stirred to life. The high-school band came pounding down Main Street, past the post office and the library and Christ the King Church. Trumpeters in gold-tasseled coats tipped their horns to the sky, heralding the arrival of teenage demigods. The star quarterback and his teammates came first in the parade, followed by the homecoming queen and her court. Behind them, on 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. He was a star in the gifted-student program, with visions of becoming a surgeon. For a 15-year-old, he had remarkable charisma.

Despite the name he acquired from his father, an immigrant from Syria, Hammami was every bit as Alabaman as his mother, a warm, plain-spoken woman who sprinkles her conversation with blandishments like “sugar” and “darlin’.” Brought up a Southern Baptist, Omar went to Bible camp as a boy and sang “Away in a Manger” on Christmas Eve. As a teenager, his passions veered between Shakespeare and Kurt Cobain, soccer and Nintendo. In the thick of his adolescence, he was fearless, raucously funny, rebellious, contrarian. “It felt cool just to be with him,” his best friend at the time, Trey Gunter, said recently. “You knew he was going to be a leader.”

A decade later, Hammami has fulfilled that promise in the most unimaginable way. Some 8,500 miles from Alabama, on the eastern edge of Africa, he has become a key figure in one of the world’s most ruthless Islamist insurgencies. That guerrilla army, known as the Shabab, is fighting to overthrow the fragile American-backed Somali government. The rebels are known for beheading political enemies, chopping off the hands of thieves and stoning women accused of adultery. With help from Al Qaeda, they have managed to turn Somalia into an ever more popular destination for jihadis from around the world.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/magazine/31Jihadist-t.html?hp=&pagewanted=all

[road2000]

1. It was worth the long read.

Fascinating, terrifying, revealing. Revealing of what, I can't fully determine. There are missing parts to this kid's life that may never be known. It's obviously very rough for his family.

[Dhalgren]

2. I think that any person who makes the choice to fight

for what they believe in, it is due to some material that we will probably never be privy to. One person's terrorists is another person's hero. I am afraid that as violent as this world is, and will continue to be with a world-wide Empire grinding bones to make its bread, we will see many many young men and women in similar situations...

ETA: Here is a pretty good article that deals with Somalia -

"Somalia: How Colonial Powers drove a Country into Chaos
Interview of Mohamed Hassan

http://www.uruknet.info/index.php?p=m63161&hd=&size=1&l=e

[suninvited]

3. my son graduated from

Daphne High School in 2001. He knew Hammami from school but didnt hang out with him or anything. My son said he was a very nice kid, very friendly.