It is not difficult to find the headquarters of French jihadist Omar Diaby in Syria. He resides in Harem, a small town known as a hub for smugglers, located on the Turkish border between Antakya and Aleppo.
Everyone knows about the “French Camp,” which sits atop a hill, resembling the one where Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros III built a fortress in the 11th century. This “jihadist village” was founded 12 years ago by a small community that came from the Ariane neighborhood in Nice, southern France.
The camp is adjacent to the radical Islamist Uyghur camp of the “Turkistan Islamic Party,” in addition to other slum-like neighborhoods where Syrian internally displaced people and “muhajireen” (foreigners who came to live in the “land of Islam”) have gathered. The camp is surrounded by high walls equipped with surveillance cameras and motion detectors.
We enter through a steel door opened by a teenage French boy holding a Kalashnikov rifle. We ask to meet their leader, Omar Diaby, known as “Omsen” (short for “Omar and Senegal”), aged 48, a veteran fighter closely linked to the al-Qaeda movement and one of the most prominent recruiters of French fighters who came to Syria at the beginning of the civil war.
“We Have Everything We Need Here”
After five minutes, we’re allowed in. The French-Senegalese “emir” introduces himself. He is athletic and has a short white beard, wearing a black Adidas tracksuit and thin-frame Police brand glasses. He is surrounded by five “brothers,” all of whom speak only French. Among them is his right-hand man, Abu Safiya—real name Guillaume Beyrout (30 years old)—who converted to Islam and became radicalized through his relationship with Diaby before following him to Syria in 2013. Abu Safiya now serves as treasurer of their group, which they call “The Strangers Brigade.”
They lead us to stone benches facing a soccer field where about ten children are playing. Omar Diaby invites us to sit in the “stands of Stade de France,” as he jokingly calls them. After 12 years, this small community is firmly rooted in Syria. Despite recent upheavals, they are determined to stay. Diaby says, “We have everything here: we established a school for the children, a mosque, our families and activities are here, and soon we’ll have cattle and cows. Why should we go back to France? Honestly, we don’t miss anything from France… except the cheese.”
“We are retired”
The French jihadist brigade returned to the spotlight in December 2024, after the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime, when videos circulated on social media showing a group of fighters riding in a pickup truck through the streets of Hama and then Latakia on the coast, expressing their joy in French.
The man filming the video shouts, while passing a Christian village near Hama: “Even the Christians are happy! Allahu Akbar!” It is believed the footage was taken by Bilal, Omar Diaby’s son. On the day of our visit to Harem, Bilal and others were on a sightseeing trip to Damascus, sending back videos from the Umayyad Mosque.
Omar Diaby was declared dead in 2015 but later reappeared and was imprisoned by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham in Idlib in 2020. He remains the most prominent Frenchman moving freely in Syria, despite being the subject of an international arrest warrant since 2014 on charges of “terrorist activities.”
Diaby says, “When we arrived here, we were around 200 people. Over the years, our numbers grew. I brought my mother, my sisters, my cousins—my whole family. Then the group split when some, the more extreme ones, joined ISIS. We lost many people. Some died. We fought for Syria. Now our mission is over. We are retired.”
Still, Diaby closely follows developments in Syria. He says, “Today, we are calling on people to come. It’s a second wave of hijra (referring to the Prophet Muhammad’s migration from Mecca to Medina), because what is coming is more dangerous than what happened in the past.”
He Was Imprisoned with His Son
Omar Diaby was an armed robber in the early 2000s and was sentenced to five years in prison. After his release, he became the manager of a small restaurant, which he says he “sold for a good profit.” He speaks about his path without hesitation: “After the attacks of September 11, 2001, I started asking myself questions: Why do people sacrifice themselves?” In his view, the reason lies in the “blatant injustice of American and Israeli policies” in the Middle East.
After his release from prison, Diaby began preaching with the Tablighi Jamaat movement. “When the uprising in Syria began, we couldn’t just stand by. I started filming videos encouraging people to migrate to the Levant. That’s when French intelligence (DCRI) summoned me on charges of incitement to violence and terrorism—so I packed my things and left for Syria immediately.”
Diaby joined Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch led by Abu Mohammad al-Julani, and fought under his command. Later, he broke away and entered into open conflict with Julani after the latter renounced ties with al-Qaeda. For Diaby, that was a “major betrayal.” He was first arrested in 2018 and imprisoned again in 2020 in Idlib along with his son. He was released in 2022 on the condition that he remain confined to his camp.
“Shar’a Wants to Appease the West”
Since the fall of the Assad regime and Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham’s takeover of Damascus, Omar “Omsen” has had much to say about the new transitional president, Ahmad Sharaa, who has reclaimed a civilian identity and now wears a formal suit. Diaby says: “He’s a chameleon. No one can change their politics overnight. What matters is what lies beneath the suit. If he succeeds in unifying the Syrians, then he’s a magician. But I don’t believe it: once you reach this level of ideology, you can’t just become what you claim to be. Either he deceived us, or he deceived you.”
Diaby sips hot tea and continues: “There are deeply rooted mujahideen here, with very strong faith, who will never accept women’s freedom or mixed-gender schools. We fear the domination of Western deviant ideologies—like ‘wokism’ and gender change. He [Shar’a] wants to appease the West, but he’s been too lenient.”
From Diaby’s perspective, Ahmad Shar’a took the wrong path when he broke from al-Qaeda and forged his own direction. He criticizes the repression carried out by HTS’s strongman in Idlib in recent years, saying: “I’ve met with Julani’s close associates, like Abu Ahmad Hudud (Anas Khattab, Julani’s right-hand man since 2012 and now head of Syrian intelligence), and I know them well… They’re criminals, and I’m a witness to their actions. Bashar was the teacher. Syrian prisons are the same everywhere.”
Diaby concludes: “Just a week ago, one of the brothers was targeted by a U.S. drone. He was a member of Hurras al-Din (a jihadist group founded in 2018 after the split with HTS that remained loyal to al-Qaeda). All of this will come to light someday.”
No Return to France
As for the “brothers” who left his brigade and continue to fight under the banner of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, Diaby says: “They chose a different path.” There are still dozens of French jihadists in the camp—“about fifty fighters,” according to French anti-terrorism prosecutor Olivier Christen. Other estimates suggest around seventy. Twenty-seven are believed to be with HTS, and around thirty women who escaped detention camps are thought to be in the Idlib region.
A small child runs up: “Papa, Mama is asking for you.” Omar Diaby replies, “I’m coming.” He receives a new video message on his phone from Bilal in Damascus—his son appears walking through a supermarket in the Syrian capital: “Look, they even have French Camembert cheese here!”
When asked whether his brigade might integrate into the Syrian army, like some other units that include foreigners, he avoids the question: “I can’t answer that.” And if things go badly? “If they don’t want us, then they should grant us safe passage to another country where we’d be secure—like Afghanistan, for example.”
After 12 years in Syria, this small community still speaks French and barely any Arabic. They dress like youths from Nice’s Ariane neighborhood, not like locals in the Levant. They dream of Camembert in Damascus. But returning to France remains out of the question for Diaby and his men.
Diaby says: “If we go back… we don’t trust them. Their problem is with Islam. When people go fight in Ukraine, they’re not called terrorists. I have no issue with other religions—back in Nice, I had Christian friends and even a Jewish friend.”
The jihadist and leader of the “Nice network” denies any accusations of terrorism: “We don’t terrorize anyone. We’ve never called for an attack in France.” But what about his comments after the Charlie Hebdo attack? In 2016, he told a France 2 news crew: “The Kouachi brothers did what had to be done. I wish I had been chosen to do it.”
On that matter, Omsen adds: “It’s simple: don’t insult the Prophet! If someone insults your mother, wouldn’t you break their mouth? It’s the same thing. The Kouachi brothers avenged the Prophet’s insult. I said I wished I had done it. They crossed the line and were warned. If God had given me the chance, I would’ve done it with a smile,” referring here to the 2015 attack on the Charlie Hebdo newspaper office in Paris, which left 12 people dead and 11 others wounded.
This interview was originally published in French in Le Point magazine on February 19, 2025.
