Omar al-Faruq

For the 7th-century caliph Umar al-Farooq, see Umar.

Omar al-Faruq
Born	(1971-05-24)24 May 1971
Arrested	Bogor, Indonesia Indonesian authorities
Died	25 September 2006(2006-09-25) (aged 35) Basra, Iraq
Citizenship	Iraq
Detained at	Bagram Theater Internment Facility
Other name(s)	Faruq al-Iraqi
Status	escaped custody, deceased

Omar al-Faruq (Arabic: عمر الفاروق; 24 May 1971 – 25 September 2006), also spelled or al-Farouq or al-Farooq, was an Iraqi citizen and a senior al-Qaeda member. He was a liaison between al-Qaeda and Islamic terrorists in the Far East, particularly Jemaah Islamiyah.

Biography

Al-Faruq was born in Iraq but raised in Kuwait. It is believed he joined al-Qaeda in the early 1990s and trained in Afghanistan, where he became one of Osama Bin Laden's key lieutenants. U.S. authorities believed al-Faruq was planning bomb attacks on American embassies when he was captured in Bogor, Indonesia in 2002 by an Indonesian security agent who handed him over to the United States. He Al-Faruq's capture was based on information derived from the capture of Abu Zubaydah. Al-Faruq in turn revealed information about a plot to bomb embassies in Southeast Asia, giving rise to the "yellow alert" of 10 September 2002.

He was sent to Bagram Theater Internment Facility in Afghanistan. In July 2005, al-Faruq escaped from Bagram prison with three other al-Qaeda suspects. The U.S. authorities did not acknowledge his escape until November, when they were unable to produce him as a witness called by defense attorney Michael Waddington, in the trial of a U.S. sergeant, Alan Driver, accused of abuse at the prison.

On 25 September 2006, Al-Faruq was killed by British troops operating in the Iraqi city of Basra. The operations took place in pre-dawn hours and involved more than 200 soldiers. There were no British casualties.