Epilogue

February 3, 2020·17 min·1 clip

Nine days after Omar Hammami was killed, his Al-Shabaab rival Abdi Gadane sent gunmen into a Nairobi shopping mall, live-tweeting an attack that left 67 dead.

The episode opens with a recap of Omar Hammami's death and its immediate aftermath: nine days after Abdi Gadane's men killed Omar in Somalia, Gadane ordered the Westgate mall attack in Nairobi, which killed 67 people and injured around 200. Putzel was called into the newsroom to cover it and was overwhelmed by fear that he should have seen it coming. He describes Omar as a ghost he could never entirely shake free of. After Omar's death, Putzel flew to Alabama to sit with Omar's parents Deborah and Shafiq around their kitchen table looking at old photographs. An FBI agent had told them of Omar's death, noting that an Al-Shabaab member had unsuccessfully tried to collect the $5 million State Department bounty on Omar. Deborah describes waking up hearing Omar's voice calling 'Mom' and wishing she could have one more cup of coffee with him. Shafiq finds comfort in the Islamic concept of destiny (al-Qaeda), believing everything was preordained and that there was nothing anyone could have done. He describes Omar's life as a waste of talent and humanity. Deborah returns to her job as a substitute teacher after two weeks, crying all day while students and teachers hug her. Omar's sister Dina, who was going through a divorce at the time of his death, describes the complications of returning to her parents' home. Her father tells her she will need to convert to Islam to see Omar in heaven — she calls it 'a little raw.' She also expresses real anger at Omar, feeling he treated his jihad as something exciting and cool even while people were trying to kill him. She struggles to explain to her young children that their uncle was shot. In the fall of 2013, Omar's old high school begins offering Arabic classes, sparking a local controversy, with some residents worried about producing 'another Omar Hammami.' Shafiq faces opposition from community members when he tries to add a school building to his mosque, with residents attending city council meetings to block the project. He attributes the opposition to his identity as the father of a terrorist. Eventually, after involving the Department of Justice, Shafiq wins the fight and builds Al-Iman Academy. Terrorism analyst J.M. Berger argues that Omar's story would not have had a happy ending even if he had lived — he wasted his life on a terrible cause that killed him, without even succeeding in his own goals. Putzel describes spending six years unable to write the story because it left him trapped in hopelessness. He eventually finds a way through: Shafiq's pride in his mosque school, his weekly phone calls with Deborah, who has become a surrogate Southern mother to him, and the invitation to his second wedding. Omar's seven children from four wives are scattered across East Africa — one in Canada, one in a Kenyan refugee camp, five in Somalia, all stateless and without documents. Shafiq and Deborah speak to them by Skype. Deborah describes seeing Omar's mannerisms and personality in his grandchildren, and says they are what keeps her going.

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