Mohamed Moumou

Mohamed Moumou (Arabic: محمد مومو‎) (also known as Abu Qaswarah or Abu Sara[2]) (July 30, 1965[3] – October 5, 2008) was a Moroccan-born Swedish national who was reportedly the No. 2 leader of al-Qaida in Iraq and the senior leader in Northern Iraq.[1][4] He died in a building in Mosul during a shootout with American troops.[1][5]

Born in Fez, Morocco,[3] he was one of the founders of the militant Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (Groupe Islamique Combattant Marocain, or GICM).[6] Moumou immigrated to Sweden in the mid-1980s and gained Swedish citizenship in the mid-1990s.[1]

In March 2004, Moumou was arrested in Copenhagen, Denmark, at the request of Moroccan authorities for his alleged role in the 2003 Casablanca bombings.[7] He was released by the Danish authorities after a month and sent back to Sweden.[8]

While in Sweden, he was the "uncontested leader of an extremist group centered around the Brandbergen Mosque" in the Stockholm suburb of Haninge, according to the U.S. Treasury Department.[3][9] Säpo, the Swedish Security Service, had been keeping an eye on him since the mid-1990s, suspecting him of leading an Islamist network that supported terrorism abroad.[1] He was believed to be recruiting Jihadists to fight in Iraq from his base in Sweden.[1] The Swedes also suspected that he had taken part in terrorist attacks and fought in Afghanistan in the 1990s.[1] In May 2006, he left for Iraq and never returned.[1] In December 2006, he was placed on the EU and UN terrorist lists.[1][3]

According to the U.S. military, Abu Qaswarah was a charismatic figure who became the senior commander in northern Iraq in June 2007 and was second in command of Al-Qaida in Iraq behind Abu Ayyub al-Masri.[4] Allegedly, he was in charge of smuggling foreign fighters into northern Iraq and killed the fighters who did not want to attack Iraqis or carry out suicide missions.[4] Prior to his death, a large number of Iraqi Christians were killed, and their murders were widely blamed on al-Qaida.[4] He is also accused of orchestrating the failed attack on the Mosul Civic Center, which if successful would have killed hundreds of Iraqi civilians.[5]

According to the United States Department of the Treasury, Moumou traveled to Afghanistan in the mid-1990s to participate in the al-Qaeda-run Khalden training camp.[3] According to TelQuel, Moumou was recruited in 1996 by Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi to serve as a "sleeper agent" in Stockholm.[6] Moumou reportedly served, at some time in the past, as "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's representative in Europe for issues related to chemical and biological weapons".[3] He reportedly maintained ties to "al-Zarqawi's inner circle" in Iraq.[3]

He was also the editor of the Al Ansar newsletter connected to the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (Groupe Islamique Armé, or GIA).[6]

The U.S. military said that it tracked Abu Qaswarah to a building in Mosul, which served as a "key command and control location" for Al-Qaida in Iraq.[5] On 5 October 2008, they entered the building, were fired upon, and during the shootout they killed five people, one of which was Abu Qaswarah.[5] His death was announced ten days later, when positive identification was made on his body.[4]

The U.S. military said his death would make it more difficult for Al-Qaida to network and operate in the region.[4]