Reluctant jihadist pays with his life after fleeing Lebanon’s grim economy
Omar Seif fled Lebanon two months before his wedding. His mother, Sabah, said that she told his brother to look for him but to no avail. “He always hoped to get married and have children,” she said. “He was waiting for this day.”
When Seif, 25, didn’t return for a few days she called the local security services and was told that he might have paid smugglers to get to Greece.
Lebanon is reeling under a severe economic crisis that has forced many people to look for any means to get out of the country.
It turned out that Seif was in Iraq, fighting for Islamic State. He called his mother on January 20, a day before he was killed. “Please forgive me,” he told her. She learnt of his death through a text message from an Iraqi unknown to her. “Your son is dead,” it said.
Security forces killed nine suspected Isis fighters hiding in the al-Azim district, north of Baghdad, in retaliation for an attack against an Iraqi army base that left 11 soldiers dead. Among the nine killed, at least four were Lebanese, including Seif.
He had worked as a day labourer in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, one of the poorest in the troubled country. Earning a decent living was impossible. “Omar didn’t have a job and couldn’t even pay for his cigarettes.” Sabah told The Times.
A source in Lebanon’s security service said that Isis handlers were tempting young, unemployed men with salaries of about £400 a month, a large sum for most people in a country where the currency has plummeted by more than 80 per cent and basic necessities have become unaffordable for many.
Bassam al-Mawlawi, the Lebanese interior minister, said that about 37 young men had left Tripoli to join Isis in Syria and Iraq.
The security official said, however, that the number was higher. About 70 to 100 men were suspected of having joined the terrorist organisation in the past two months.
Sabah said she feared that her son had left because he faced being picked up again by the security forces. He was imprisoned for five years for being a member of a terrorist group but claimed that the case was based on false allegations, she said.
“He was psychologically distressed and felt unwelcome in his country,” she said, insisting that was the main reason he left Lebanon.
The deepening economic crisis and a sense of disenfranchisement among Lebanon’s Sunnis are pushing young men towards extremism. Their country’s leadership is dominated by Hezbollah, a Shia militia and political party.
Isis rose to prominence in Lebanon in 2014 and was responsible for many bombings including a suicide attack.
The Lebanese security forces managed to rein in the terrorists. They believe, however, that some sleeper cells remain active.
The security officials are convinced that they can still manage the situation, but not if the economy continues to flounder.
