Personal Info
- Country of residence: Iraq
Information
Omar Yousef Juma Saleh, known as Abu
Anas Al-Shami, is a Palestinian from the Palestinian city of Tulkarm. He was
born in 1969 in Kuwait, and holds Jordanian nationality. He assumed the
position of Deputy Leader of the Group of Monotheism and Jihad, and the legal
mufti of the group, and thus he is considered the second man in the group after
Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi.
his upbringing
Abu Anas Al-Shami, a Palestinian
from the city of Tulkarem in the West Bank, was born in the Salmiya area in the
east of the capital, Kuwait, in 1969. He lived his childhood in the care of his
parents, and his father raised him from an early age to love the Arabic
language. He memorized the Holy Qur’an at the age of fifteen, and after
completing secondary school he went to study Sharia at the Islamic University
in Medina in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, there he met with the youth of jihad
He was satisfied with many of their opinions and theses and encouraged them.
His travel to Afghanistan
At the beginning of the summer of
1990, that is, before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, he traveled to Afghanistan,
accompanied by his university colleague Abu Hammam al-Filistini, and they
stayed in the al-Farouq camp for military training and preparation for about
three months, during which they completed the use of light weapons,
Kalashnikovs, anti-aircraft guns, and the manufacture of explosives, then they
took an oath not to use what they learned against Muslims And that was after
they pledged allegiance to the Emir of the camp on “hearing and obedience in
good and bad times.” After that, they returned to change the situation of “Abu
Anas al-Shami,” who began preaching jihad in every council he sat in and
increased his eagerness to seek knowledge and call for it.
his marriage
In the summer of 1991, Abu Anas
married a Palestinian girl from the Gaza Strip, carrying an Egyptian travel
document, and her family lived in Saudi Arabia before she moved to live with
her husband in Jordan. In the same neighborhood. He had a baby girl in early
1993, and he named her “Maymouna.” Then, three years later, he had a son,
“Anas,” and two years later, his son, “Malik.”
Achievements and Awards
His request for knowledge
Abu Anas al-Shami left Jordan for
Saudi Arabia several times to meet sheikhs and scholars, ask them some
questions, and discuss with them matters that worried him a lot, including the
American presence in the Gulf region. It pained him greatly to arrest the
sheikhs Safar al-Hawali, Salman al-Awda, and Nasser al-Omar, and he considered
that this triangle was “the safety valve for the nation, and that they are the
actual leaders of the Islamic movement.” When he finished his studies at the
Islamic University in Madinah, he worked as an imam at Murad Mosque in Al-Irsal
neighborhood in the Sweileh area. West of the capital, Amman.
“Abu Anas al-Shami” worked hard to
teach Sharia sciences in his mosque, influenced by the thought of Sheikh Dr.
Safar al-Hawali, and he was active in the call, and a large number of young
people were affected by his proposal. Sheikh Abi Muhammad al-Maqdisi (Issam
al-Barqawi), who believes in the infidelity of the ruling Arab regimes and
calls for disavowal of them.
Abu Anas al-Shami left Jordan to
Bosnia and Herzegovina to teach and preach, then returned to work as a teacher,
educator, and volunteer preacher at the Imam al-Bukhari Center, which he helped
establish in the northern Marka region in the Jordanian capital, Amman. In March
2003, he was arrested for declaring among his students and followers, “The
regime The ruler in Jordan has turned the country into an American military
barracks, obeying its orders and ending with its end, and that the next war is
not against the Iraqi regime, but rather against Islam.” And that was during
the American preparations to launch the war on Iraq, and he was calling on
people to oppose the government’s approach to support the Americans and go to
Iraq to support the jihad there After that, he was released to go back to
urging his students and followers to “jihad against the American occupier” in
Iraq.
He goes to Iraq
After he felt that he had “fulfilled
what he had to do of the mission of preaching,” he went to Iraq after he spread
the news of his intention to travel to Saudi Arabia to work, after he returned
from performing Umrah in September 2003, and there he joined the “Tawhid and
Jihad” group led by Sheikh Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. .
It wasn't long before people were
surprised that "Abu Anas" became the group's legal official and
trusted advisor close to Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. Audio recordings and articles
appeared on some jihadist websites on the Internet in which he talks about the
battle of Fallujah in April 2004. The importance of these recordings and
articles lies in the fact that they have become As a "document" that
confirms and clarifies the group's role in the current events in Iraq.
It is not strange for those who knew
“Abu Anas al-Shami” to find in his description of the battle some subtleties
and jokes, as he has a cheerful spirit that tends to entertain others through
laughter, and for this reason he described this incident after he narrated the
situation of a battle he fought with one of his colleagues in the battle and
they were forced by the pouring American bullets On their heads from sheltering
in a shop that sells birds, «After the shooting stopped - he says - «I woke up
from the horror of the shock and the birds were expelled from me and I went
down with my companion and the shooting had become very severe for us, and I
rode my head and became stubborn and I am not usually stubborn and I climbed a
house facing them and it did not separate me They were away from them except
the street and one house, and I had a grenade with me, so I threw it at them
and waited for the sound, but I did not hear anything, because the detonator
was Iraqi, and it did not explode, and God is the helper.
So I went down and advanced towards
the corner of the branch directly facing them, and was surprised by the heavy
rain above it (the pecta) that had entered the branch and advanced and I was
face to face with it. I feel that it will collapse and fall, as our brothers
here say, and I crouched in my place, and I had only a Kalashnikov rifle [?]
with two magazines joined together, and I had emptied one and a half of the
magazine, and I had a number of bullets in my dress, so I started filling the
magazine and waiting for the outcome.
I don't know,,, but I really felt
that my time had not come and that my journey in life was not marked by an
expiration, the bastards threw, then they withdrew with safety. I walled up the
wall until the end of it, then I went out walking back feeling tired and
ringing in my ears that did not subside. Funny, because it was worn out and
worn out, and Sheikh Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi was insisting on me to create another
one, and I am sorry and tell him this shoe is dear to me, because it was given
to me by a dear brother from the Prophet’s city, so I do not overdo it. And he
was joking with me and saying: I don't know how he fights a mujahid with such a
shoe?
And I wrote on that day to Sheikh
Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, informing him that his wish had been fulfilled, and there
was a trick between me and my shoes. And he adds, "I wanted to say: We,
praise be to God, with the enormity of the danger and the severity of the
ordeal, we were living in tranquility and tranquility, with great care and a
happy life, and with the thunderstorms, we were joking and laughing as if we
were among our safe people, and that is God's grace upon us."
After that, Abu Anas was injured in
the battles of Fallujah during the bombing, and he lost the sense of hearing in
one of his ears, on April 7, 2004, and he “continued the jihad, going to the
mosques, urging the people to support the mujahideen, shelter them, and hide
them from the eyes of the occupying Americans.” Many people fulfilled their
legal duty towards the mujahideen, and they were a blessing to us.”
source
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