You don’t know his name, and you’ve never seen his face. But this year, as America leaves Iraq for good after eight years of war, we also leave behind a man believed by our military and intelligence agencies to be the best terrorist hunter alive. He’s still there, hunting. And so are the terrorists.
By Daniel Voll
iraq terrorist hunter
Courtesy of Timothy Clemente
Virginia, Summer 2010
Omar Mohammed hunts terrorists in Baghdad. Hunts them and kills them. A few months ago, he killed two big guys in Al Qaeda — Abu Ayyub al-Masri and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the two most-wanted terrorists in all of Iraq. But when you hunt Al Qaeda, they also hunt you. The more you kill them, the more they want to kill you. They’ve shot Omar, blown him up, and killed dozens of his men.
Omar is a senior officer in the Iraqi Counterterrorism Unit. He was doing police work when the Americans invaded in 2003, and he volunteered his services to the occupiers as the insurgent war overwhelmed the American presence, enveloping them in a kind of warfare for which they were not prepared. To America’s military and to many intelligence operatives in Washington and in Iraq, Omar is the best terrorist hunter alive. His photo has never been published. His face doesn’t exist in any database linked to his real name. It’s a broad, handsome face, and he’s thick as a bull across the neck and shoulders.
At this precise moment he’s not in Iraq, though; he’s in a red canoe on a river in Virginia, heading fast toward a waterfall.
In the back of the canoe is Tim Clemente, a former FBI agent who until recently served on Washington’s Joint Terrorism Task Force and is himself regarded as an excellent terrorist hunter. He trained Omar to hunt terrorists. Like a lot of FBI agents, you don’t notice Clemente at first. Not too tall, not too short. Hair close-cropped but not military. Calm, kind hazel eyes. As can happen with those who bond in a common purpose under threat of death, Omar and Clemente are best friends, and they are here on the Rappahannock, as far from Baghdad as you can get, for a vacation with their families. In a month, the United States will pull all but fifty thousand troops out of Iraq, effectively ending all combat operations there, and the White House has announced that all American troops will be gone by the end of 2011, bringing an end to the eight-year U. S. military engagement altogether.
That’s why Clemente has invited Omar* here.
MORE.
