The Ride

January 13, 2020·26 min·1 clip

While his marriage was ending at a Christmas party attended by Colin Powell and the former CIA director, journalist Christoph Putzel's phone buzzed — it was Omar Hamami, just added to the FBI's most-wanted terrorist list, calling from Somalia.

Omar vanishes. His last email arrives with the subject line "Houston, we have a problem," and then the daily back-and-forth just stops. Months pass. The host watches African Union troops overrun al-Shabaab strongholds on TV while a Twitter account posts photos of dead fighters. Omar surviving starts to feel like a long shot. Before he disappeared, he had sent an audio recording answering questions about food, sleep, combat, and life as a jihadi in combat. The recording sticks with the host. When Omar comes back, he sounds strangely calm, talking about a small garden and cows eating his beans. That calm does not last. The host keeps returning to the obvious risk: what happens if people inside Shabaab find out? The episode treats their relationship as transactional, but never lets it stay that tidy. The journalist wants the story. Omar wants a channel to the world. Somewhere in there, the host becomes the one person Omar can still be American with, even though the whole connection depends on talking to a terrorist. The reporting starts to swallow everything. A long GQ profile becomes both assignment and lifeline, a reason to keep Omar on the phone. The host admits the strain and keeps pulling because journalism is the only tool he has. Omar plays along, joking about GQ putting his face on a suited body. It is funny for about a second, then the danger comes back. The next preview points to operational-security mistakes, attempts to map Omar's movements, pressure to surrender, and Shabaab saying he has 15 days to drop his weapon or be killed.

As heard by us

A close, tense report on Omar Hamami and the reporter who kept returning to him.

The episode gets its force from Omar Hamami's last email and the audio of him answering questions in his own voice before he disappears from the story. That material gives the piece its tension.

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Why you'd press play

When a source is also a fighter, every call carries real stakes.

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