I don’t blame Ilhan for the sins of her father, but what she has done since then is entirely on her.

Bill Ponton | October 28, 2026

It is a story with all the elements of a good narrative: devious characters, an exotic setting, a twisted plot, international conflict, etc. I am not talking about the Odyssey. I am referring to the story of Ilhan Omar and her family. Let’s start at the beginning. Ilhan Omar, the darling of the Left who has accused Netanyahu of perpetrating Gazan genocide, is the daughter of a mass-murderer. Not a fake one either, but the kind that lines up his enemies to be shot.

Her father, Nur Omar Mohamed, first received acclaim as a colonel in the Somali army leading a regiment during the Somalian invasion of Ethiopia in 1977. He went on with a prestigious career in the military, which ended in 1991 after the dictatorial Marxist regime of Mohammed Siad Barre was ousted from power. I say prestigious if you ignore the genocidal campaign that he waged against northern secessionists in Somaliland.

According to the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale and their Genocide Studies Program:

Between 1960 and 1991, the government of Somalia killed hundreds........

© American Thinker