Former Officer Claims Ilhan Omar’s Father Was a Feared Somali Colonel
An anonymous witness has described Nur Omar Mohamed as a feared army commander. Earlier reporting had already identified his rank, while giving a different personal recollection.
The New York Post on October 16 published an interview with a man it described as a former Somali army officer who served with Rep. Ilhan Omar’s father. The newspaper withheld his identity because, it said, he still lives in Somalia and fears reprisals. His account concerns Mohamed’s military career decades before Omar entered Congress.
An anonymous witness and specific claims
The man placed Mohamed at the military hub of Baidoa and described him as a colonel whose presence intimidated some around him. He also claimed Mohamed trained in Egypt in the 1960s and helped organise troops during Somalia’s war with Ethiopia in 1977 and 1978.
These new recollections rest on one anonymous witness. Israel News Pulse could not independently find service records or other evidence verifying the account of intimidation. The Post itself acknowledged that there is no evidence that Mohamed committed war crimes.
His army career was reported in 2020
In June 2020, Sahan Journal had already reported that Mohamed was a colonel who commanded a regiment in that war. Its named source, former colonel Yusuf Ismail Faraton, said he had known Mohamed since the early 1970s. Faraton recalled him as a considerate, respectful person.
Sahan Journal cited military education in Russia, rather than the Egypt training described by the Post’s source. Those accounts need not be mutually exclusive, but a service file would be needed to reconcile them. The earlier coverage establishes that the military career was publicly reported years before the latest allegations.
The war and the Barre government
Somalia’s army served under Siad Barre, who seized power in 1969 and was removed in 1991. Human Rights Watch’s historical account describes Somalia’s invasion of Ethiopia’s Ogaden region in 1977 and its defeat the following year. The organisation separately documented repression and attacks on civilians under Barre during the 1980s.
Contemporary United States diplomatic records provide further context: in a March 7, 1978 memorandum, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance urged pressure on Barre to withdraw. That record concerns the war’s strategic course. Neither it nor the Human Rights Watch background cited here establishes individual conduct by Mohamed.
Responses and the current investigation
Omar announced her father’s death from complications of COVID-19 on June 15, 2020, in a statement on her congressional website. The Post said her representatives declined to comment for its new article. Israel News Pulse could not find a subsequent public response addressing that witness’s claims.
The interview arrives amid scrutiny of an October 12 search of Omar’s Washington home. CBS News reported her office’s denial of wrongdoing. In an official statement, House Judiciary Democrat Jamie Raskin criticised the search as political retaliation and demanded accountability. Those positions concern the federal investigation, rather than the officer’s later account.
