Report: Nusra Front Warns Shaker of Returning to Singing Career

A prominent figure in the al-Qaida-affiliate al-Nusra Front warned former singer turned Islamist militant Fadel Shaker of returning to his previous career.

Saudi jihadi preacher, Abdullah al-Mohaisany, threatened in a message directed to Shaker via his Twitter account of becoming an artist again after his recent statements that he wants to return to his “normal, natural life” with his friends and family.

Mohaisany advised Shaker not to “take the stage of singing once again,” saying: “I didn't know you as a singer but I knew you as a jihadi chanter... Maybe the jihadi path is hard but I am surprised” of your behavior.

“Fadel... maybe it's a stormy path that tired you but I will advise you that you will leave to the another place... crown your journey and remain a preacher and a chanter for Islam and devote your money and efforts to Allah,” Mohaisany, who is currently residing in Syria, said in a tweet.

He added: “If you couldn't be with the righteous path then don't follow the falsehood.”

Mohaisany told Fadel: “You shouldn't go back to the amusement and singing theater and allow your enemies to triumph.”

“If your want you can return to your normal life but don't return” to your previous career.

Sources told al-Akhbar newspaper published on Wednesday that Shaker increased his security measures in fears of an assault by al-Nusra Front or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Shaker has been on the run for nearly two years. He is hiding in a home he recently bought in the southern Palestinian refugee camp of Ain el-Hilweh, his birthplace, according to witnesses who recently met him.

In an interview with LBCI released Saturday, Shaker denied fighting alongside Salafist cleric Ahmed al-Asir's gunmen in the fierce 2013 clashes with the army in the Sidon suburb of Abra. At least 18 soldiers and dozens of gunmen were killed in the gunbattles.

Though he grew to become one of the Arab world's most famous singers, Shaker suffered through a miserable childhood of poverty, which a onetime musician friend says helped lead him down a dark path later in life.

Now in his mid-forties, Shaker was born to a Palestinian mother and Lebanese father.

Born Fadel Shmandur, he began his career as a popular wedding singer who performed from the rooftops of the camp, an over-crowded and hopeless place.

In his prime, Shaker sang love songs that were instant region-wide hits. He released his first album in the late nineties, and continued to perform until 2011.

H.K.

G.K.