Update March 15th: Read our first hand account of the hearing here.
Bloomberg is reporting today that a Senate committee headed by Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman will be hearing testimony on jihadist recruitment activities in the US that involve the missing Somali youths.
The disappearances also are raising concern among lawmakers. Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut independent who heads the Senate homeland security panel, plans a hearing March 11 on recruitment efforts in the U.S. by Somali groups.
And, it seems our old friend Omar Jamal whom I called the Somali Jesse Jackson when we first encountered him with his nose in the Denver Somali Cyanide death last summer, is busy organizing the bereft moms and grandmoms.
At least 17 young men have vanished during the past two years from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area and are believed to be in Somalia now, said Omar Jamal, executive director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center in St. Paul, a legal-aid organization.
Lul and three other mothers or grandmothers of missing young men have formed a group attempting to make sure the disappearances are reported, and to ensure that if their children return, they won’t be held by authorities. Other parents may not have reported disappearances for fear their children will be targeted by law enforcement, or that family immigration violations may come to light, said Jamal, who helped organize the mothers.
“If he comes back, I’m afraid he will be arrested,” Lul said of her son. “We don’t want him to be victimized again.”
I smell a rat. If you have been following this story for months, as we have, you will have noticed that this is not the first time Omar Jamal (formerly convicted of immigration fraud in Tennessee) is pointing a finger and selling out the local mosque. He reportedly is considered the rat.
Lul said someone “indoctrinated” her son, though she isn’t sure who persuaded him to travel to Somalia. Jamal said those he knows of who disappeared had attended a Minneapolis mosque, the Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic Center.
Omar Hurre, director of the center, said the mosque played no role and that he has urged anyone with knowledge of what happened to come forward.
“We don’t know where they picked up those ideas,” Hurre said in an interview. “Attending the mosque programs does not in any way, shape or form mean we had anything to do with this.”
If you use our search function for Omar Jamal you will see he defends Somali rapists, khat chewing, dead Canadian Somalis in Denver, Minnesota Somali gang members, and even the Somali suicide bomber whose body we returned to Minnesota, so why not the mosque?
Reminder to new readers: Tens of thousands of Somalis may be in the US fraudulently, here.