Ibrahim Issa al Bakr

Family

Ibrahim Issa Haji Muhammad al-Bakr, or Ibrahim Issa al-Bakr, was born on July 12, 1977 in Qatar.

Ibrahim Issa al-Bakr is one of five sons of Issa Haji Mohammed al-Bakr. One of Ibrahim’s brothers, Mohammad Isa al-Bakr, was a coordinator of the now defunct Madid Ahl al-Sham online fundraising campaign that was cited by members of the Al-Nusra Front as "one of the preferred conduits for donations" and garnered widespread support from terrorist financiers.

Ibrahim’s father, Issa Haji Mohammed al-Bakr, passed away in November of 2011 at 90 years old.

Terrorist activity

Al-Bakr was arrested in the early 2000s by Qatari authorities for his involvement in a jihadist network and for working as a fundraiser to support terrorism. Al-Bakr was later released from prison after "he promised not to conduct terrorist activity in Qatar."

In 2002, al-Bakr provided a fraudulent passport to a senior al-Qaida operative. The identity of the al-Qaeda operative has not been specifically indicated. However, the U.S. Department of the Treasury reported that SDGT Abd Muhammad al-Kawari obtained a fraudulent passport for Hassan Ghul in the early 2000s before traveling to Qatar with Ibrahim al-Bakr. Hassan Ghul, a senior al-Qaida operative, has been labeled as Osama bin Laden’s emissary to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Also in 2002, Al-Bakr received tens of thousands of dollars from an al-Qaeda operative in Saudi Arabia and couriered it to a Pakistan-based facilitator.

In a 2014 report from the U.S. Department of Treasury entitled "Treasury Designates Twelve Foreign Terrorist Fighter Facilitators", al-Bakr was described as having "played a key role in a terrorist cell that was plotting to attack U.S. military bases and personnel in Qatar." Al-Bakr’s involvement in the terrorist network began as of early 2006.

As of mid-2012, al-Bakr had also worked for al-Qaeda by collecting and transferring funds from Gulf-based financiers to al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

In a 2014 article, The Telegraph claims that al-Bakr "has connections" to Abd al-Malik Muhammad Yusuf Uthman abd al-Salam who was added to the U.N. Security Council’s Al-Qaida Sanctions List in 2015. Al-Salam, widely known as Umar al-Qatari, is a Qatar-based Jordanian national designated as a SDGT for giving "thousands of dollars and material support to a Syria-based al-Qaida associate intended for ANF (Al-Nusra Front) operatives", recruiting for ANF, facilitating travel to ANF in Syria, and working alongside Ibrahim al-Bakr to acquire and transport weapons to Syria with the help of a Syria-based al-Qaeda operative.

In late 2012, Ibrahim al-Bakr traveled to Waziristan, Federally Administered Tribal Areas, Pakistan "for his work with al-Qaida." Because Umar al-Qatari also traveled to Waziristan in 2012, where he spent time at an al-Qaida training camp, some questions remain about whether their connection extended beyond their work for al Nusra Front and into supporting al-Qaeda training sites.

As of late 2014, it was reported that the U.S. believes al-Bakr is "still providing financial, material, or technological support to al-Qaeda."

Terrorist designation

On September 24, 2014, the U.S. Department of the Treasury named Ibrahim ‘Isa Hajji Muhammad al-Bakr as a SDGT and a foreign terrorist fighter facilitator. On January 23, 2015, the United Nations Security Council’s ISIL & Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee listed al-Bakr as being associated with al-Qaeda for "participating in the financing, planning, facilitating, preparing, or perpetrating of acts or activities by, in conjugation with, under the name of, on behalf of, or in support of" and "otherwise supporting acts or activities of" al-Qaeda.