Omar Omsen: French super jihadist returns to fight in Syria on Turkish orders

Mohamed Yosry

There is more happening in the areas of armed conflict in Syria than what is made public, including the demise of a terrorist star, the rise of a second, the merger of one group with another, and the return of some previously considered dead.

Among the most prominent terrorists whose name has begun to appear again recently is Omar Diaby, known as Omar Omsen, a French citizen of Senegalese origin who leads a group of the most dangerous foreign terrorists in Syria, especially those coming from France. He was called “France’s super jihadist” by his supporters prior to his disappearance two years ago, amid news of his death in a military operation.

Omsen did not appear alone this time, as his son Bilal was with him during the fighting in Idlib. What is Omsen’s story, what caused him to split and to what faction does he belong, and why has he appeared now?

Al-Qaeda and Turkish support

Omsen, who was born in the French city of Nice in 1971, has always admitted that he has carried out al-Qaeda’s directives since his arrival to Syria from France in 2013. He led a group that was fighting within the ranks of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) loyal to al-Qaeda, which included foreign fighters from France and Africa, before it announced its separation from HTS and joined the Guardians of Religion organization in Latakia and the countryside of Idlib.

Omsen’s squad is known as Firqat al-Ghuraba (FG – “Brigade of Outsiders”), as most of the fighters involved are foreigners. Omsen himself was one of the most disturbing figures for HTS, which accused him of attempting to incite French nationals within HTS’s ranks to leave and join FG.

Omsen and his team had participated with HTS in taking control of the cities of Idlib and Jisr al-Shughour in northern Syria in 2015, during which we was wounded. At the time, FG had announced that he was killed during the operation, with the aim of covering up that he was taken from Syria to receive treatment in Turkey. He remained hidden until appearing again in a 2016 video recording.

FG had fought alongside the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), a terrorist faction of Asian descent that includes Uighur fighters, as well HTS, until differences began between Omsen and HTS leader Abu Mohammad al-Julani after the latter had arrested a number of al-Qaeda leaders in HTS who later defected as a result of Julani’s announcement of disengaging from al-Qaeda. Among those who split were Jordanian Abu Julaybib Toubas and Abu Khadeejah, Sami al-Oraydi Abu Humam al-Shami and others. They in turn founded the Guardians of Religion organization, which announced its merger with the Tawhid Brigade in 2017.

Omsen continued to incite foreigners within HTS to secede from the group in the midst of previous disagreements. Julani was left no option except to arrest him on the accusation of inciting the French and Africans within HTS to defect, until he announced the Guardians of Religion organization that is loyal to al-Qaeda. Omsen was released in 2019, after which he disappeared from the spotlight. However, he has recently reappeared in Syria, fighting alongside the Turkish-backed terrorist groups. His son Bilal has also been leading a group of French terrorists belonging to his father’s group in Idlib.

Paris attacks

Since Omsen arrived in Syria in 2013, he continuously released videos inciting French extremists to fight in Syria. Security reports indicate that he managed to recruit 80% of the French fighters that joined HTS and armed factions loyal to al-Qaeda in Syria. The French investigations into the Paris attacks that occurred on November 13, 2015 also showed a relationship between Omsen and the perpetrators of the serial attacks that killed more than 130 people, in one of the worst terrorist attacks to have hit Europe.

In 2016, the United States placed Omsen on the list of international terrorists, and France considers the videos he broadcast online in cooperation with a French extremist group as the main reason for the large number of French nationals joining the ranks of terrorist groups in both Syria and Iraq.

Scandals and extortion

Omsen’s name was also associated with one of the most famous cases of kidnapping and extortion by terrorist groups in Syria, namely the case of the kidnapped Belgian child Yasmine Mehdi Jundullah in 2018, which caused a major crisis between HTS and Guardians of Religion. Omsen was accused of extorting the mother for ransom.

The girl’s story began when her Belgian mother had been detained by HTS at the end of 2016 after her father was killed during an operation in which Omsen’s FG participated, before he separated from the organization, in the northeastern countryside of Latakia and the western countryside of Idlib.

Omsen claimed that the girl’s father wrote a will in which he asked Omsen him to keep the girl with him. But with her mother’s insistence on keeping the girl, HS and Guardians of Religion leaders conducted extensive investigations and found that Omsen had deceived a number of HTS leaders. He had convinced them that the child’s mother had converted and became an infidel, pushing them give a fatwa that it is not permissible to hand the girl over to her mother. But the investigations revealed that Omsen was extorting the mother for a sum of $4,950.