In some ways he sounds like a typical American twenty-something. He likes Chinese barbeque. He attended Bible Camp as a kid and played soccer in high school.
Born to a Syrian Muslim father and a white Protestant mother near Mobile, Alabama, he came of age listening to music like Nirvana, watching movies like Fight Club, hanging out with his friends at Waffle House and going to school dances.
But somewhere along the way, Omar Hammami’s cultural orientation changed. Now he lives in Somalia where in 2006 he joined an Islamist guerrilla army group called al Shebab.
His relationship with the al Shebab has faltered, though, and with the U.S. government assigning a $5 million bounty on his head, he’s a man with enemies on all sides.
Spencer Ackerman, a senior writer at Wired, interviewed Hammami by Twitter for a new piece in the magazine. He tells The Takeaway why Hammami could be the next American citizen to be killed in a drone attack. Ackerman also writes for Wired’s national security blog “Danger Room.”