Ibn al-Khattab
Samir Saleh Abdullah al-Suwailim (Arabic: سامر صالح عبد الله السويلم; 14 April 1963/1969 – 20 March 2002),[1] commonly known as Ibn al-Khattab or Emir Khattab, was a Saudi Arabian pan-Islamic jihadist. Though he fought in many conflicts, he is best known for his involvement in the First Chechen War and the Second Chechen War, which he participated in after moving to Chechnya at the invitation of the Akhmadov brothers.[2]
This article is about the Saudi Mujahid. For the second Rashidun caliph, see Umar ibn al-Khattab.
The origins and real identity of Khattab remained a mystery to most until after his death, when his brother gave an interview to the press.[3] His death in 2002 had followed his exposure to a poisoned letter, which had been delivered to him by a personal courier who was secretly recruited by the Federal Security Service (FSB) of the Russian Federation.
According to American scholar Muhammad al-Ubaydi who specializes in the study of militant Islam, Khattab's continued relevance is due to his ideology; a Salafi jihadist born in Saudi Arabia who had taken part in conflicts in Afghanistan, Azerbaijan (allegedly), Bosnia and Herzegovina, Chechnya, Dagestan, and Tajikistan, and who in addition to his native Arabic was able to communicate in English, Kurdish, Pashto, Persian, and Russian. Compounding this was his charismatic appealing approach towards attracting non-Arab Muslims to fight for his cause and his pioneering use of modern media dissemination techniques to promote jihad, particularly by way of publishing military videos for propaganda purposes.[4]
Early life and education[edit]
Khattab's background is a topic of debate, with some sources placing his year of birth as 1963 in Jordan as well as his birth name being Habib Abd al-Rahman Ibn al-Khattab, to a family of Jordanian-Circassian origin.[5][6] Another claim says Khattab was born in 1969 as Samir bin Salah al-Suwailim in Arar, Saudi Arabia, to a Bedouin father of the Arab Suwaylim tribe, also found in Jordan, and a mother of Syrian Turkmen descent. Regardless of the claims, Khattab self-identified as an Arab and later identified with both Saudi Arabia and Jordan as his countries.[7]
He was described as a brilliant student, scoring 94 percent in the secondary school examination, and initially wanted to continue his higher studies in the United States, even if he was already fond of Islamic periodicals and tapes as opposed to his siblings, to the extent they renamed him after the second caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab. He would retain the title during his militant activities, which began in 1987, by joining the Afghan Arabs against the Afghan Government Forces and the Soviet Army.[8]
Career[edit]
Afghanistan[edit]
At the age of 17, Khattab left Saudi Arabia to participate in the fight against forces of the Republic of Afghanistan and the Soviet Union during the Soviet–Afghan War and the following Afghan Civil War. During this time, he lost the majority of his right hand after an accident with IEDs. He never visited the hospital, and he healed it by himself using honey, as per the Prophetic medicine.[9][10] He would participate in the botched Battle of Jalalabad in 1989.
Khattab, while the leader of Islamic International Brigade, publicly admitted that he spent the period between 1989 and 1994 in Afghanistan and that he had met Osama bin Laden and Zawahiri. In March 1994, Khattab arrived in Afghanistan and toured fighter training camps in Khost province. He returned to Afghanistan with the first group of Chechen militants in May 1994. Khattab underwent training in Afghanistan and had close connections with al-Qaeda. Several hundred Chechens eventually trained in al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan.[11][12]
Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, and Bosnia–Herzegovina[edit]
Armenian sources claim that in 1992 he was one of many Chechen volunteers who aided Azerbaijan in the embattled region of Nagorno-Karabakh, where he allegedly met Shamil Basayev. However, the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense denied any involvement by Khattab in the First Nagorno-Karabakh War.[13][14]
From 1993 to 1995, Khattab left to fight alongside Islamic opposition in the Tajikistan Civil War. Before leaving for Tajikistan in 1994, al-Khattab gave Abdulkareem Khadr a pet rabbit of his own, which was promptly named Khattab.[15]
In an interview, Khattab once mentioned he had also been involved in the Bosnian War. The fragment of this interview in which he makes this statement can be found in the 2004 BBC documentary The Smell of Paradise, though he did not specify his exact role or the duration of his presence there.[16]