Omar al-Faruq

Omar al-Faruq
Born	(1971-05-24)24 May 1971
Arrested	Bogor, Indonesia Indonesian authorities
Died	25 September 2006(2006-09-25) (aged 35)[1] Basra, Iraq
Citizenship	Iraq
Detained at	Bagram Theater Internment Facility
Alternate name	Faruq al-Iraqi
Status	escaped custody, deceased

Omar al-Faruq (Arabic: عمر الفاروق‎; 24 May 1971 – 25 September 2006), also spelled or al-Farouq or al-Farooq, was an Iraqi citizen and a senior al-Qaeda member. He was a liaison between al-Qaeda and Islamic terrorists in the Far East, particularly Jemaah Islamiyah.

Biography

Al-Faruq was born in Iraq but raised in Kuwait. It is believed he joined al-Qaeda in the early 1990s and trained in Afghanistan, where he became one of Osama Bin Laden's key lieutenants. U.S. authorities believed al-Faruq was planning bomb attacks on American embassies when he was captured in Bogor, Indonesia in 2002 by an Indonesian security agent who handed him over to the United States.^[2] He^[3] Al-Faruq's capture was based on information derived from the capture of Abu Zubaydah.^[4] Al-Faruq in turn revealed information about a plot to bomb embassies in Southeast Asia, giving rise to the "yellow alert" of 10 September 2002.^[3]

He was sent to Bagram Theater Internment Facility in Afghanistan. In July 2005, al-Faruq escaped from Bagram prison with three other al-Qaeda suspects. The U.S. authorities did not acknowledge his escape until November, when they were unable to produce him as a witness called by defense attorney Michael Waddington, in the trial of a U.S. sergeant, Alan Driver, accused of abuse at the prison.

On 25 September 2006, Al-Faruq was killed by British troops operating in the Iraqi city of Basra. The operations took place in pre-dawn hours and involved more than 200 soldiers. There were no British casualties.^[5]

References