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| Abu Waheeb |
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.
TheCable
understands 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.
Source: TheCable
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