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The video followed Abu Mansour and his fellow jihadists from preparation to after-action in an ambush on Ethiopian troops. After the attack Abu Mansour reported that two of his men were killed. This, he explained, was a good thing.

Our main objective, one of the things that we seek for in this life of ours, is to die as martyrs. So the fact that we got two martyrs, is nothing more than a victory in and of itself.86

Hammami was also shown offering religious instruction to the mujahideen in English and Arabic. The quality of his theology was simplistic—one day of jihad is worth a month of fasting and prayers. Later in the video, Hammami began to sing and chant, accompanied by a rap song by an unnamed performer. Only someone truly committed to the jihad could bear to listen to his attempts to sing for very long.

Blow by blow, year by year,

I’m keeping these kaffirs living in fear.

Night by night, day by day,

Mujahideen spreading all over the place.

Month by month, year by year,

Keeping them kaffirs living in fear.

Blow by blow, crime by crime,

Only gonna add to my venging rhymes.

Bomb by bomb, blast by blast,

Only gonna bring back the glorious past.87

Music is forbidden in Shabab’s strict version of Islam, but an exception is made for religiously oriented songs without instrumental accompaniment, called nasheeds. Hammami’s excruciating singing debut was a big hit with Western jihadists, perhaps due to impaired taste because they were predisposed to be uncomfortable with music. Several follow-up songs were released, featuring other performers speaking, singing, and rapping in American-accented English.

You must make a choice. Are you gonna live like an honorable man, and die like an honorable man, or are you gonna live like a humiliated coward, and die like one?

Somalia is the place,

[Emigrants] from every race base come.

Don’t delay.

Come before you’re bein’ judged on Judgment Day.

Life is rising, surprising.

The [infidels] are high-rising, talking, advising, chastising, advising.

We got a plan finalizing.

Crystallizing, Muslims realizing.

Ain’t no disguisin’, we’re on the horizon.88

The combination of a familiar youth-oriented format with American speakers proved to be a powerful recruiting tool. Additional videos were produced, including one showing Hammami leading an event on behalf of children whose fathers had died fighting for Shabab. The male children were given toy guns and encouraged to play “mujahideen.”89

Abu Mansour’s stock continued to rise with a wider and more diverse audience, thanks to the influence of online American friends such as Daniel Maldonado. Somalia was fast becoming a cause célèbre for a new breed of jihadist recruits.

JIHAD JANE

Perhaps no case illustrates the incredible diversity of the American jihadist community better than the story of Colleen LaRose, better known as “Jihad Jane.”

Jihad is mostly a boy’s game, both in the United States and abroad. From time to time, jihadist organizations will trumpet the formation of a women’s brigade, equipped with Kalashnikovs and modest, body-covering uniforms, but these are the exception rather than the rule. A handful of women have also volunteered as suicide bombers, mostly to exploit the security hole created by expectations that a terrorist will be male. In the United States, women jihadists have mostly been confined to the sidelines, raising small amounts of money for groups like Al Shabab and providing moral support to jihadist husbands.90

So when a blue-eyed, blonde woman from Pennsylvania emerged as an accused terrorist, it made headlines across the country. Colleen LaRose was born in 1963 and lived a life “like a country music song,” as one investigator told the Philadelphia Inquirer. She grew up in Texas, married at sixteen, divorced, married again eight years later, then divorced again. Her life was dotted with fights, drunken escapades, bad checks, and at least one suicide attempt.91

Moving