Ibrahim
Uwais, son of former chief justice of Nigeria, was killed in an air strike by
US-led coalition forces on a senior ISIS leader in Iraq on May 6.
It is understood that Halima,
Ibrahim’s wife who travelled with him to Iraq in February 2015, has called to
inform her father-in-law, Mohammed, who was Nigeria’s chief justice from
1995 to 2006.
Ibrahim was believed to be in the
convoy of Abu Waheeb (pictured), a senior ISIS leader dubbed “the emir of
Anbar”, at the time of the US airstrike in a town near Rutba in the
Anbar desert.
TheCable could not confirm if he was in
Waheeb’s convoy or if he happened to be in the vicinity of the
US strike.
All in the convoy were killed in the
strike, but only the identity of Waheeb had been made public by Pentagon.
Waheeb had been reported killed on
several occasions, but Pentagon confirmed that the former member
of Al-Qaeda in Iraq who used to appear in ISIS execution videos is
now dead.
Ibrahim, 42, left Nigeria early 2015 to
join ISIS in a surprise move, because he was said to have openly condemned
Boko Haram for the “damage” they were doing to Islam.
He had two wives and four children
at the time he left the country.
While his elder wife was the
head of a private school in Abuja, the younger worked with the Debt
Management Office (DMO).
Before embarking on the trip to Iraq
via Turkey, he reportedly told his wives that they were free to
return to their parents.
“But both of them said they would go
with him,” a source told TheCable when the news broke last year, adding that
they took all their children with them.
When the retired justice was alerted on
the disappearance of his son and his family, he became apprehensive and
started to make investigations, eventually reporting to the security
agencies.
The Turkish embassy in Abuja was
compelled to disclose the details of Ibrahim’s movement through a court
injunction, and it confirmed issuing visas to Ibrahim and members of
his family, sources told TheCable.
The details of his arrival in Turkey
were made available, while images of CCTV recordings were also said to have
been analysed by the Turkish security agencies to establish their movement.
Ibrahim “hated” Boko Haram
Ibrahim, who dropped out of the
university and went into full-time business in his early 20s, is the
unlikeliest man to volunteer for the Islamic State, according to family
friends who spoke with TheCable.
“He hated everything Boko Haram stood
for, and often queried why they would be killing innocent women and children in
the name of Islam,” a source said.
“With the benefit of hindsight, he was
probably trying to cover up his plans. There was no way you would have
suspected that he was ever going to be a fundamentalist himself.”
He was a student of King’s College,
Lagos, and went on to the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, “where he was
radicalised”, according to a former student of Queen’s College, Lagos, who told
TheCable that Ibrahim “was very popular with QC girls in those days”.
A family source confirmed
that Ibrahim left Nigeria with his family early February 2015 “without a
word”.
“The fact that he didn’t say goodbye to
both parents, and the deafening silence from his end since then, seems to lend
credence to this story line (that he has joined ISIS),” he said.
The man Shaker Wahib al-Fahdawi al-Dulaimi
Shaker Wahib al-Fahdawi al-Dulaimi,
known as Abu Waheeb, was known for the 2013 execution of three Syrian Alawite
truck drivers in Iraq.
Waheeb, born in 1986, studied computer
science at the University of Anbar, where he was arrested in 2006 by US forces
on suspicion of being a member of al-Qaeda.
He was charged and sentenced to death
but escaped from the Tikrit Central Prison in Saladin Province along with
over 100 detainees following an attack on the prison in 2012 by ISIS.
He would become a field commander in
the Anbar province.
Pentangon spokesman Peter Cook
said Wahib was “a former member of Al-Qaeda in Iraq who has appeared in ISIL
execution videos.
“We view him as a significant leader in
ISIL leadership overall, not just in Anbar Province. Removing him from the
battlefield will be a significant step forward.”
He was one of ISIS most feared
executioners and propagandists.
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