Former Gitmo detainee killed while leading jihadist group in Syria

via The Long War Journal. h/t Religion of Peace

Ibrahim Bin Shakaran, a Moroccan who spent more than three years at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility before being released to Moroccan custody, has been killed while leading a jihadist group that fights Syrian government forces.

Bin Shakaran, who is also known as Abu Ahmad al Maghribi, Abu Ahmad al Muhajir, and Brahim Benchekroune, was “martyred, Insha’Allah, in battles for Hilltop # 45 in Latakia,” according to Kavkaz Center, a propaganda arm of the Islamic Caucasus Emirate.

Bin Shakaran led a jihadist group known as Sham al Islam, which is based in Latakia and is comprised primarily of fighters from Morocco, according to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Bin Shakaran created the group “not only to recruit fighters for the Syria war, but also to establish a jihadist organization within Morocco itself.”

Sham al Islam has been fighting alongside the al Qaeda’s Syrian branch, the Al Nusrah Front for the People of the Levant, as well as Ahrar al Sham and the Army of the Emigrants and Supporters in an ongoing offensive in the coastal province of Latakia.

Sham al Islam was one of several rebel groups that fought in another offensive in Latakia in August 2013 in which major human rights abuses were committed. While Human Rights Watch noted that Sham al Islam was present during the offensive, it could not confirm if the group was involved in the atrocities committed. The group’s allies, the Al Nusrah Front, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham, Ahrar al Sham, Jaish al Muhajireen wal Ansar (or Army of Emigrants and Helpers), and Suquor al Izz, were directly implicated. [See Report highlights al Qaeda affiliates’ role in Syrian atrocities, from LWJ.]

Bin Shakaran is the second former Guantanamo Bay detainee from Morocco reported to have been killed in Syria while waging jihad for Sham al Islam. The other ex-Guantanamo detainee, who was known as Mohammed al ‘Alami, was killed last year.

A December 2003 leaked threat assessment authored by Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO) identified Bin Shakaran as a “high-ranking member” of the theological commission of the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, an al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist organization. According to the assessment, he traveled to Afghanistan in November 2000, “attended basic and advanced training at the Al Farouq training camp,” a known al Qaeda facility, “from January to May 2001,” and then “rotated to the front lines near Kabul” in October 2001 after the US invaded Afghanistan.

Bin Shakaran fled Afghanistan as US forces pressed al Qaeda. He passed through the Afghan province of Logar, then to Pakistan’s Waziristan tribal area, then to Bannu, and after that to Lahore with “two Pakistanis, three Arabs and a Turkmenistani.”

The 2003 JTF-GTMO threat assessment recommended that Bin Shakaran remain in custody as he “poses a high risk as he is likely to pose a threat against the US, its interests, or her allies.”

Despite the assessment, the US transferred Bin Shakaran to Moroccan custody in July 2004, and he was released shortly afterward by Moroccan authorities.

Bin Shakaran immediately returned to the fight. The Defense Department reported in 2008 that Bin Shakaran and another freed Guantanamo detainee known as Mohammed Bin Ahmad Mizouz were involved “in a terrorist network recruiting Moroccans to fight for Abu Musab al Zarqawi’s al Qaeda in Iraq.” Zarqawi’s group was responsible for killing and wounding thousands of US soldiers in Iraq.

Read it all.

9 Responses

  1. Obama said he “promised” not to. Bad man!

  2. Bet BOZO is all broken up over loosing another one of his COUSINS! MUSLIMS ARE ALL LIARS AND THUGS! NONE ARE FIT FOR HUMAN AQUANTENTS!

    • How do you tell the difference in Muslims and Democrats?

      • Hi, democrats do not believe in Sharia laws. Would you please read up on the difference, so you would not ask such stupid questions. Yes , you guess I am NOT a democrat, but a Christian with Western democratic values.

  3. Whatever politician or beaurocrat that approved the terrorists release from Gitmo needs to be sent there to assume the required indefinate internment of the terrorist until Hell freezes over.

  4. […] Former Gitmo detainee killed while leading jihadist group in Syria […]

    • I hope he is resting in peace in hell , slowly burning as Dante perceived hell. He is in good company among his like.

  5. […] where he began recruiting for Al Qaeda in Iraq. After being repeatedly arrested and released, he meets his 72 raisins a decade after his original release from […]

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