Mohammed Haydar Zammar

Mohammed Haydar Zammar (محمد حيدر زمار Muḥammad Ḥaydar Zammār) (born 1961) is a Syrian-German militant who served as an important al-Qaida recruiter, and is currently a member of the Islamic State.

But in 1991, he decided to make jihad his full-time job.

He flew to Afghanistan by way of Pakistan and underwent a training program for mujahideen fighters.

His training included weapons knowledge, use of explosives, and advanced tactics.

He performed well and was moved to an elite training camp near Jalalabad.

By the end of the year, he had "graduated" and returned to Hamburg.

Zammar travelled extensively over the next few years.

While working as a mechanic, he took long trips to Syria, Jordan, Turkey, and Sweden.

In 1995, he traveled to Bosnia to fight there.

And in 1996, Zammar visited Afghanistan for a second time, this time to become a formal member of the group called al-Qaeda.

He was reported to have been personally invited by Osama bin Laden.

When Zammar returned to Hamburg he became a well known preacher among the Islamic community.

Mohamed Atta, a very conservative Muslim, became friends with Zammar around 1998.

Zammar has reportedly boasted that he personally recruited Atta and other hijackers into al-Qaida, although this has not been confirmed.

Zammar also met frequently with Mounir El Motassadeq around this time.

In 1998 Germany intensified their surveillance of Zammar.

He was occasionally trailed, his phone was tapped, and all his calls were recorded.

German authorities shared much of this information with the CIA, including Zammar's phone conversations with hijackers Marwan al-Shehhi, Mohamed Atta, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, and Said Bahaji.

Atta, Shehhi, and bin al-Shibh formed the Hamburg cell in November 1998, and Zammar is reported to have been a frequent visitor.

Atta became respected as the group's leader, and Zammar was seen more as a valuable conduit for international contacts.

Zammar may not have been aware of plans for an attack within the United States.

In the Summer of 1999, U.S. intelligence discovered that Zammar was in direct contact with one of bin Laden's senior operational coordinators.

The U.S. apparently did not share this information with German intelligence.

Zammar is also known to have met frequently with Said Bahaji in Germany in 2000.

He claims to have recruited many of the organizers of the September 11, 2001, attacks.

He was detained in Far'Falastin.

On October 27, 2001, Zammar traveled to Morocco.

Der Spiegel described him, in 2002, as an imposing figure, who frequently gave enthusiastic speeches on behalf of bin Laden and other Islamists.

German police began to formally investigate him at this time, long before al-Qaeda's attacks on 9-11.

Zammar made frequent short trips to Afghanistan throughout this period.

Not long afterwards, he was arrested by Moroccan police with the assistance of the U.S. Although he was a German citizen and under investigation by Germany, German intelligence only learned about the arrest from the newspapers in June 2002.

Instead of being deported to the U.S. or Germany, Zammar was secretly sent to Syria for indefinite detention in the notorious Far'Falastin detention center in Damascus.

A video believed to be taken in early 2014 places him listening to a speech by Abu Ali al-Anbari, the number two in the Islamic State, in Aleppo, Syria.

Zammar, a German citizen, was born in Syria.

At ten he moved to Germany with his family.

Even among his very religiously conservative family, Mohammed Zammar impressed many with his extreme devotion at an early age.

He became well known at many of the mosques in Hamburg, Germany.

While still in high school, Zammar began to be associated with Jihadists through Mamoun Darkazanli, a fellow Syrian and al-Qaeda financier.

Zammar attended a metalworking college and planned to work for Mercedes-Benz.

He worked as a translator in Saudi Arabia, and then took a job as a truck-driver back in Hamburg.