Ahmad Umar

Ahmed Umar (Somali: Axmed Cumar, Arabic: أحمد عمر‎), also known as Ahmed Diriye and Abu Ubaidah, is the Emir of the Somalia-based Islamist group Al-Shabaab. He was listed by the U.S. State Department as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in April 2015. He has a bounty of $6,000,000 on his head from the Rewards for Justice Program.

Ahmed Umar was born in 1972 in Luq, Gedo, or in Kismayo, Lower Juba.

He is believed to be in his forties and is a member of the Bajimaal section of theDir clan from the Kismayo region of Somalia.

Ahmed Diriye became the leader of al-Shabaab following the death of the group's former leader, Ahmed Abdi Godane, in September 2014. Prior to replacing Godane, Diriye served in several positions within al-Shabaab, including as Godane's assistant, the deputy governor of Lower Juba region in 2008, and al-Shabaab's governor of Bay and Bakool regions in 2009. By 2013, he was a senior adviser to Godane, and served in al-Shabaab's "Interior Department," where he oversaw the group's domestic activity. He shares Godane's vision for al-Shabaab's terrorist attacks in Somalia as an element of al-Qa’ida's greater global aspirations.

He was named Al-Shabaab leader in September 2014, after Godane was killed by a U.S. airstrike.