Expert: Ilhan Omar's Dad Was Never Refugee, Was Actually Commander in Military That Killed 200k People

A historian specializing in Somalia’s civil war has alleged that Rep. Ilhan Omar’s father served as a military commander under dictator Siad Barre, whose regime killed as many as 200,000 people, according to an interview with the New York Post.

Mohamed Haji Ingiriis, an Oxford University historian and researcher, told the newspaper that Omar’s father “misrepresented himself as a refugee” after the regime fell. His claims concern Nur Omar Mohamed, also known as Nur Said Elmi Mohamed, who died in 2020.

The allegations add a new dimension to scrutiny of Omar’s immigration history, which intensified after federal agents searched her home Monday. The search was reportedly part of an investigation into whether Omar misrepresented her age when she obtained U.S. citizenship through her father in 2000.

Public sources listed Omar’s birth year as 1981 until 2019, the New York Post reported. After a viral video questioned whether she qualified for citizenship as a minor, Omar said she was born in 1982. If she had been born in 1981, she would have been 18 or 19 when the 2000 application was filed, potentially affecting her eligibility through her father.

Omar has said her birth records were destroyed when she left Somalia. The Post reported that investigators may be examining whether she knowingly continued using an incorrect birthdate. Omar has denied wrongdoing.

Omar has described her father as an “educator” who fled Somalia for the United States in 1995. Ingiriis, however, told the newspaper that he “was a full colonel” in Barre’s military regime.

“Nur Said was a military officer who was loyal to the regime until the end,” Ingiriis told the newspaper.

“He was part and parcel of those who caused and created the mayhem they ‘fled’ to live comfortably in the United States.”

Ingiriis said Nur received military training in either the former Soviet Union or Egypt and remained in the army until Barre lost power in 1991. A former fellow officer, Yusuf Ismail Faraton, told a Minnesota outlet in 2020 that Nur had played a “significant role” in Somalia’s war with Ethiopia.

“He only fled when the dictatorship fell in 1991,” Ingiriis told the New York Post. “He was the beneficiary of the military regime and should not have been given asylum whatsoever.”

Ingiriis also argued that Nur would have had to conceal his military service from U.S. officials to receive asylum. U.S. law bars refugee status for “any person who ordered, incited, assisted or otherwise participated in the persecution of any person on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.”

The New York Post reported that Nur came to the United States after escaping to Kenya. Ingiriis said he “assisted the dictator to remain in power for so long” and “was protecting his career and his colonel position.”

“I think it is very wrong for the United States to host war criminals,” Ingiriis said.

“This creates a constant resentment and sadness among the real victims who were terrorized by the military regime under which Nur Said loyally served.”

The allegations about Nur’s military service may not, by themselves, establish a legal basis for action against Omar, but they could draw further attention to the circumstances of her family’s asylum and citizenship history.

Omar has said the search was ordered by President Donald Trump and intended to silence her.

“For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns. This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation,” she said.

“I will not be silenced.”

Trump denied having a role in the search while criticizing Omar.

“I’ve always found her to be totally crooked, personally, but [the raid] has nothing to do with me.”

“I think she’s a terrible person, just a complainer,” he added. “She comes from a country that is a non-country, and then she comes over here, and she complains about our Constitution. I think she’s a terrible person, but that’s really up to the DOJ. I have nothing to do with it.”