Abdullah Ramo Pazara

Abdullah Ramo Pazara was a Bosnian-American who was suspected of an association with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).[1][2]

Abdullah Ramo Pazara
Born
Bosnia
Died2014 (aged 37–38)
Syria
Nationalityjoint citizen of Bosnia and the USA
Occupationtruck driver
Known foralleged to have led jihadists in ISIL

He was born a member of Bosnia's Muslim majority, near Teslić an area of Bosnia largely populated by Bosnian Serbs.[2] He was a youth during the brutal civil war that lead to Bosnia's independence from Yugoslavia.

Atlantic magazine described how the Vojska Republike Srpske, a Serbian militia, called upon non-Serbs to swear a loyalty oath to it. [2] They reported some Bosnian sources claimed Pazara was enlisted, as a child soldier, and fought with the Serbian VRS, against his own people. They described his upbringing as "shattering", and that he seemed to have failed to adapt to peacetime civilian life.

Pazara was born in Bosnia, and became an American citizen.[1] US intelligence officials describe him becoming radicalized, after he became an American citizen, and then traveled to Syria in July 2013, and volunteered to fight for ISIS.[3] However, according to the St Louis Post-Dispatch, Pazara was not naturalized until 2013.[4] They described how he may have died there, but not before rising to a command position, and leading six other American ISIS followers to transfer funds to ISIS. Ramiz Zijad Hodzic, Sedina Unkic Hodzic, Medy Salkicevic, Jasminka Ramic, Armin Harcevic, and Nihad Rosic, the six individuals described as his conspirators, all faced terrorism charges on February 7, 2015.[5] They too were all immigrants from Bosnia.[6]

In 2017 the six alleged co-conspirators who faced charges for helping to fund Pazara's activities in Syria filed a motion have their charges dropped, arguing he was a lawful combatant, fighting against Syria's Bashar al-Assad government, while enlisted with militia groups that operated with the support of the US.[3][4]

References
  1. Seamus Hughes. "Abdullah Ramo Pazara: Overview". George Washington University Program on Extremism. Retrieved 2017-09-29. NBC News quoted unnamed "authorities" in stating that Pazara may have been killed in 2014. Pazara's activities are well-documented in the indictment of six other Bosnian-Americans who were charged with providing material support to terrorists and one count of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists.
  2. Seamus Hughes, Bennett Clifford (2017-05-17). "First He Became an American—Then He Joined ISIS". Atlantic magazine. Retrieved 2017-09-29. To uncover Abdullah Ramo Pazara's story, we spent months tracking down the fragments of Pazara's life from around the world—U.S. federal court documents in the Eastern District of Missouri, reports of military records from a Serbian nationalist paramilitary formation, truckers' licenses from the state of Michigan, media accounts, Facebook posts from a villa in Azaz, Syria.
  3. Robert Patrick (2017-04-09). "funding case hope to prove St. Louis man was 'lawful combatant'". St Louis Post-Dispatch. Retrieved 2017-10-01. Seamus Hughes, deputy director of George Washington University's Program on Extremism, has researched Pazara's activities and called the defense motion "a very novel but uphill battle."
  4. Robert Patrick (2017-07-26). "St. Louis County residents, others seek to dismiss charges in terror funding case". St Louis Post-Dispatch. Retrieved 2017-10-01. The defense motion to dismiss two counts of the indictment says that Abdullah Ramo Pazara fought for groups supported by the U.S. government and therefore "qualified for combatant immunity for their acts of legitimate warfare against the Bashar al-Assad regime."
  5. "Feds Charge 6 With Terrorism-Related Crimes Involving Links to ISIS". NBC News. 2015-02-07. Retrieved 2017-09-29. Prosecutors say Pazara communicated through Facebook and other social media with the six people charged.
  6. Samantha Masunaga (2015-02-08). "6 Bosnian immigrants indicted in alleged overseas terror financing ring". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2017-09-29. One name that comes up repeatedly in the document, but is not among the indicted, is that of Abdullah Ramo Pazara, a Bosnian native who also went by three other names. Pazara became a naturalized citizen of the U.S. and lived in St. Louis, Mo., for a time before leaving the country in May 2013.
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