Ilhan Omar, a prominent Democratic congresswoman, has captivated many with her inspiring narrative: a refugee who escaped war, embraced the American dream, and ascended to political prominence advocating for universal healthcare, immigrant rights, and progressive initiatives.

However, new insights revealed by the Daily Mail, through photographs, archival documents, and historical accounts from Somalia, suggest a more intricate and concerning background for the Minnesota representative.

The evidence includes photographs connecting Omar and her family to some of Somalia’s most notorious figures, such as Major General Mohammed Said Hersi Morgan, infamously dubbed the ‘Butcher of Hargeisa’ for his role in the horrific events of the late 1980s.

These records also shed light on the military service of Omar’s late father, Nur Omar Mohamed, who served as an officer in the Somali National Army under the rule of the long-standing dictator, Mohammed Siad Barre.

While Omar has consistently portrayed her family as victims of the devastating civil war that erupted in Somalia in 1991, critics and activists from the autonomous Somaliland region argue that her father was not just an ordinary soldier but rather a participant in the regime’s oppressive apparatus.

Archive footage even shows an SNA officer who resembles a younger Mohamed brazenly discussing the brutal mass killing of civilians with other colonels. 

Omar’s office did not respond to the Daily Mail’s request for comment. She has previously dismissed inquiries about her family background as politically motivated attacks and smear campaigns.

The debate comes as Omar defends a Somali-American community that’s been spotlighted by revelations of a $1 billion COVID-era welfare fraud that was led by Somali scammers.

Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar presents herself as a progressive champion of universal healthcare who regularly criticizes Israeli abuses in Gaza 

Critics say Omar should now acknowledge her family’s links to the atrocities perpetrated in her native Somalia in the late 1980s. Pictured: The devastation of Hargeisa, Somaliland 

But to understand the controversy, one must look back to a brutal era in Somali history.

In the late 1980s, Barre’s dictatorship was fighting for its life. Facing a growing rebellion in the north, his forces launched a devastating crackdown on members of the Isaaq clan in the region now known as Somaliland.

Human rights groups estimate that tens of thousands – possibly up to 200,000 – civilians were killed in an orchestrated campaign of rape, torture, executions and aerial bombing.  

The campaign was overseen by Barre’s son-in-law, Gen Morgan, widely accused by international organizations of war crimes. He was never prosecuted.

Omar was just a child at the time – born in 1982 – and bears no responsibility for events that unfolded when she was eight or nine years old.

But some of her critics argue her family’s proximity to senior military officials raises legitimate questions about her narrative as a refugee who fled the dictatorship.

One activist from Somaliland, who asked not to be named for security reasons, said: ‘Ilhan Omar has adopted a public persona as a liberal refugee turned Congresswoman, selling the American public on a story of her family being innocent victims.

‘But her father and grandfather [Abukar] were high-ranking officials in the same regime that committed unimaginable brutality.’

He claims that a colonel in the SNA would almost certainly have been aware of abuses being committed at the time – some of them in the same city in which the family lived.

Perhaps more damning still is the grainy video footage of Barre’s top brass openly discussing how to annihilate Somalianders.

The footage, unearthed by Somaliland academic Hussein Bulhan, is a fifth-generation copy, but shows a man with similar appearance to Omar’s father discussing how to wipe out whole towns and cities.

‘Kill even the wounded. Destroy water sources and reservoirs. Burn down villages, pillage and kill their residents,’ says one of the other military chiefs.

‘You must eliminate all. Allow no activity, no life. Kill all but the crows.’

When Omar visited the Puntland region of Somalia in December 2022, she was only seats away from Major General Mohammed Said Hersi Morgan, known as the ‘Butcher of Hargeisa’ 

Gen Morgan, the son-in-law of toppled dictator Siad Barre, oversaw a campaign that claimed the lives of as many as 200,000 civilians in Somaliland

Facebook posts show Omar’s UK-based brother and sister, Mohamed Nur Said and Sahra Noor, posing beside ‘the butcher’ Gen Morgan in Puntland, Somalia 

Omar’s sister Sahra Noor has also posted about her joy at being ‘reunited’ with Omar 

Articles in the Somaliland Chronicle, a news platform, have raised similar concerns about Mohamed’s role in crimes against humanity.

Still, the activist provided no proof of direct involvement. And human rights investigators say they have never received any allegations tying Omar’s father personally to war crimes.

Carmen Cheung Ka-Man is executive director of the Center for Justice and Accountability, which has investigated dozens of cases of rights abusers among Somalia’s diaspora in the US.

‘We have no records of Nur Omar Mohamed’s name coming up in our investigations,’ she told the Daily Mail.

Another expert, Jose Pablo Baraybar, a Peruvian forensic anthropologist who has probed atrocities in Somaliland, likewise said he had never come across Mohamed’s name in his investigations.

Omar herself has offered glimpses into her father’s past in her 2020 memoir, This Is What America Looks Like.

She describes a middle-class childhood in Mogadishu that came crashing down when civil war broke out.

She refers to her father both as a colonel in the Somali army and a ‘teacher trainer.’

Public records and interviews published elsewhere in the US paint a more detailed picture.

A former officer told the Sahan Journal that Mohamed had received military training in Soviet Russia and played a ‘significant role’ in the 1977–78 war against Ethiopia.

He remained on staff in Mogadishu as the Barre regime carried out its campaign against the Isaaq clans in the north.

After the regime collapsed and the family had settled in America, he is said to have returned to Somalia’s Puntland region to help rebuild its security forces.

Since the politician’s father Nur Omar Mohamed died in 2020, his military record has increasingly come into question  

Omar’s father Mohamed was a colonel in dictator Barre’s army in the 1970s and 1980s, when the force was accused of widespread human rights violations 

Grainy footage from the Barre regime shows an officer with a striking resemblance to Omar’s father in a meeting about how to best annihilate Somaliland civilians

There is no evidence he personally participated in atrocities, but critics argue that being senior staff during a period of mass killings raises ethical questions.

The Somaliland activist, in an email exchange, claimed: ‘It is inconceivable that as a colonel he was not involved. At the very least he had awareness.’

These are allegations and are strongly disputed by some Somali community members, who say Mohamed was a professional administrator caught up in a collapsing regime, not a war criminal.

Perhaps the most striking material involves Omar’s family’s historical connections to Gen Morgan. Photos obtained by the Daily Mail show Omar being honored at an official event in Puntland, Somalia, in December 2022, where Gen Morgan is seated nearby.

Photos on social media show Gen Morgan posing with Mohamed Nur Said and Sahra Noor – who are understood to be two of Omar’s UK-based siblings. Somalia’s broken records system makes family connections difficult to verify.

In a Facebook post, Omar’s brother tellingly refers to Gen Morgan as an ‘uncle,’ and says that they were ‘family friends and brothers since childhood.’

Morgan died in May 2025 at age 76 in Nairobi. Human Rights Watch and UN monitors had long tied him to atrocities — but he lived openly in East Africa for decades and never faced trial.

The images raise a simple question that Omar’s critics are now asking: Why did she appear alongside a senior figure from the very regime she says she fled – and why has she not addressed these connections?

Omar’s family escaped Mogadishu after Barre fell in 1991, escaping first to Kismayo, then to a refugee camp in Kenya.

They arrived in the US in 1995 and settled in Virginia before moving to Minneapolis – now home to America’s largest Somali community.

The Somaliland activist called into question Mohamed’s resettlement in the US, saying the refugee system was designed for victims of persecution, not those who were part of the apparatus that inflicted it.

Omar aged 13 after arriving in the US under a refugee program that critics now say her father should not have been eligible for

Somali President Mohamed Siad Barre pictured in 1990, just months before his enemies joined forces to overthrow him 

Somalia has seen little but war, jihad and state collapse since dictator Barre was toppled in 1991

Critics also argue her recent political positions demand transparency.

Somaliland’s former foreign minister Rhoda J Elmi has accused Omar of ‘ethno-racist rhetoric’ following the lawmaker’s calls for a unified Somalia and rejection of self-rule for Somaliland.

Critics also point out that Omar has been vocal in condemning human-rights abuses in conflicts around the world, especially in Israel and Russia.

The Somaliland activist said Omar must ‘reckon with her own history’ if she expects others to do the same.

‘Why is it that Ilhan Omar can condemn the violence in Gaza and Ukraine, but is unwilling to condemn her father’s brutal regime?’ he asked. ‘Surely justice starts at home.’

Omar has repeatedly said that allegations about her family are part of a long-running campaign of attacks and misinformation aimed at her because she is an immigrant Muslim woman – and now a progressive trailblazer in US politics.

Over the years, she has dismissed claims about her family history alongside other sketchy allegations – including the viral internet theory that she married her brother – as ‘baseless conspiracies,’ and something she denies.

She has also emphasized her pride in being a refugee and the opportunities America gave her.

Omar cannot be held responsible for the actions of a dictatorship that collapsed when she was a child.

But the newly surfaced photos, archival records and historical accounts about her family’s ties to Somalia’s old ruling elite raise thorny, uncomfortable questions — not just about the past, but about the version of her story she chooses to tell.