The Jerusalem Post is reporting today that possibly 500 or more American Somalis have gone to join the terrorist group al-Shabaab in Somalia. Hat tip: Jerry Gordon. The highest number we’ve heard so far is 40 and federal officials have been consistently saying 20 are missing.
Abdinur Hussein, a Somali national who lives in Minnesota, the state with the largest Somali community in the U.S., believes that more than 500 youths might have gone to Somalia to fight alongside Islamist rebels.
Besides this new and shocking figure, the story interested me because it implies that all the missing are “children.” In fact it uses the world ‘children’ 23 times in the course of the article to make sure we get the message. The one Minneapolis Somali we know that did go to Somalia and blow himself up was 27 years old, hardly a “kid.”
The Jerusalem Post begins with this improbable story:
“I had returned from work and asked my other children where my son Mohamed Yasin was; but they said they hadn’t seen him all day,” Abdi says.
She reported the 14-year-old boy to the police as missing, but they could not find him.
After 10 days she gave up looking for him. One day, she says, a young boy called their phone from Somalia, saying, “Mum, it’s your son Mohamed; I came to Mogadishu to fight against the enemies of Somalia.”
She just gave up looking for him after 10 days? Oh come on, unless its some cultural thing (ha ha), every mother I know would be moving heaven and earth to find her child. The story continues:
He hung up the phone without saying another word.
She says she was upset that her child went to the anarchic country and took up a gun to fight.
So, did her caller ID register Mogadishu? How does she know where he was calling from?
Then this! It’s all our fault, our US security, for letting her little boy leave the country on a plane.
“The only thing I am expecting now is for him to die,” she says tearfully.
Abdi blames the U.S. federal police for her young boy’s disappearance – according to her, it is because of lack of good safeguards at airports.
“How can a very young boy be allowed to fly on a plane? The police are irresponsible,” she says.
Maybe Mom’s irresponsible for not keeping a better eye on her son and monitoring who he is spending time with! Besides, she would have had to approve a passport.
I’m going out on a limb here and suggest all these “children” have not left the country. I even think we are being mislead for some reason, but why?