Here is a report from Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) yesterday that sheds more light on the Somali missing youths (former refugees) believed to have joined the terrorist group Al-Shabaab in the Horn of Africa. It seems that family members here in the US are working the phones and their contacts in Somalia to find their missing young men.
Minneapolis, Minn. — The Somali community in Minneapolis is still well-networked into the homeland. Family and business ties make it surprisingly common for people to stay in touch with the social life and economy of this failed state. Somalia hasn’t had a working government since 1991.
Osman Ahmed [Ahmed testified in the recent Senate Homeland Security hearing], whose 17-year-old nephew Burhan Hassan disappeared last November, has been working his contacts back home to try to find his nephew. He knows the FBI is also on the case, but he says law enforcement is mainly concerned with making sure the men don’t cause harm in the United States.
Can the men receive immunity?
Mohamed [Abdirashid Mohamed], the commerce minister [old friend of Osman Ahmed], said his government has had no direct contact with the missing men, but is trying to reach them through appeals on the radio.
“We cannot get to them directly, but through the media,” he said. “We would like to give them forgiveness. And if they join in the peace process, we will assist them and we will appeal to the international community that they will not take any action against them.”
The transitional government is advertising immunity if these men return to their home countries. Young Somalis have reportedly gone missing from Britain as well.
But immunity is a big promise, considering it’s a major violation of U.S. law to join and fight with a terrorist group or to fight against an ally of the U.S., such as Ethiopia. Somali-Americans in their teens and 20s have told MPR that they believe some of the missing men sought to defend their homeland from Ethiopian troops, which invaded Somalia in 2006 but have since left.
The Somali commerce minister said he’s reached out to staff at the American embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, to ease the way for these missing men to return home.
Relatives are painting a picture of brainwashed youngsters. Hum!
Another uncle of 17-year-old Burhan Hassan is constantly calling up his old friends about the fate of the missing men. Abdirizak Bihi said these friends from his homeland have told him that the missing men are being held captive in the southern part of Somalia that Al-Shabaab controls. He believes an unknown recruiter in Minnesota lured his nephew to Somalia under a false pretext.
“Someone here — some people, some group, someone — has been painting a perfect picture of Somalia,” Bihi said. “That is being confirmed by some of the conversations we’ve been having with people on the ground in Somalia.”
Bihi said his friends have told him that the young Americans “are being watched, they are heavily guarded, and heavily trained — mentally and physically.” He declined to explain how they were gathering such information, saying he didn’t want to jeopardize the ongoing investigation.
MPR reports that there is no confirmation that any have returned to the US.
There remain unconfirmed rumors that some of the missing men have returned to the U.S. But it’s obvious to Bihi that his nephew and many others are still in Africa. He said the young men have made phone calls to their families right before press conferences to address their disappearances.
A phone call doesn’t confirm where they are calling from, this only confirms they are hearing the news from Minneapolis.