Omar al-Faruq

Omar al-Faruq
Born	1969[1] Iraq
Arrested	Bogor, Indonesia Indonesian authorities
Died	25 September 2006
Citizenship	Iraqi
Detained at	Bagram Theater Internment Facility
Alternate name	Faruq al-Iraqi
Status	escaped custody, deceased

Omar al-Faruq (Arabic: عمر الفاروق; 1969 – 25 September 2006), also spelled or al-Farouq or al-Farooq, born Mahmoud Ahmad Mohammed Ahmad, was an islamic militant with high profile connections with Al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah in Southeast Asia particularly the Philippines and Indonesia.

Biography[]

Al-Faruq was born in Iraq. 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] The^[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]

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