From boy next-door to terrorist: what made a popular Alabama teenager join an Islamic holy war against the United States?

• Author: Elliott, Andrea
• Position: NATIONAL - Omar Hammami - Biography

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On a warm fall day in 1999, the high school band marched down Main Street in Daphne, Alabama. The football team came first in the parade, followed by the homecoming queen. Behind them, on the student-government float, Omar Hammami tossed candy to the crowd.

The son of a Southern Baptist mother from Alabama and a Muslim father from Syria, Omar had just been elected president of the sophomore class. He was dating one of the most popular girls in school, and his classmates found him smart, funny, and rebellious. He dreamed of becoming a surgeon. At 15, he already had remarkable charisma.

"It felt cool just to be with him," recalls Trey Gunter, a friend from high school. "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 east coast of Africa, he has become a key figure in a ruthless Islamist insurgency in Somalia known as the Shabab. The rebel group is notorious for beheading political enemies, chopping off the hands of thieves, and stoning women accused of adultery. With help from Al Qaeda, the terrorist group that carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S., the Shabab has turned Somalia into a destination for jihadis, or Islamic holy warriors.

In a recent propaganda video on YouTube, Hammami is identified as Abu Mansoor Al-Amriki, "the American."

"We're waiting for the enemy to come," he whispers, a smile crossing his face. "We're going to kill all of them."

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Over the past year, at least two dozen men in the U.S. have been charged with terrorism-related offenses. But Hammami's position of leadership puts him in a class of his own: U.S. intelligence and law-enforcement officials say he commands guerrilla forces and plans strategy with Al Qaeda operatives.

"To have an American citizen that has risen to this kind of a rank in a terrorist organization--we have not seen that before," says a senior American law-enforcement official.

In a December 2009 e-mail message, Hammami responded to questions (submitted through an intermediary) about his views. Of Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda's founder, he said, "All of us are ready and willing to obey his commands." Did Hammami consider America a legitimate target for attack? "It's quite obvious that I believe America is a target," he wrote.

JOURNEY TO JIHAD

A few months earlier, Hammami had contacted his sister, 28-year-old Dena, through Facebook. He told her he was prepared to meet death, adding, "It's all in God's hands."

Omar Hammami's transformation from popular "boy next door" to jihadist began in Daphne, a town of 19,000 about 13 miles flora Mobile, Alabama, with Colonial-style cottages and wide, tree-shaded streets.

His father, Shafik Hammami, was looking for a quiet American town when he left Syria for the U.S. in 1972, hoping to study medicine. He enrolled in a community college not far from Daphne. Alabama's conservative Christian culture agreed with him. Most of the women didn't drink or smoke, and those were the first things he liked about Debra Hadley. Soon she and Shafik were engaged. They had a church wedding, followed by a Muslim ceremony in the reception hall.

By the time Omar was born in 1984, his parents and sister had moved to...