Month: April 2009

Some missing American Somali youths are going public in Somalia

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

And, there is more in this Fox News report about “the American” we told you about yesterday.   Hat tip:  Blulitespecial.

Two young Americans who left their homes to join an Al Qaeda-linked terrorist group in Somalia held a rare “press conference” in Southern Somalia on Monday, saying they want to be killed “for the sake of God,” according to a U.S. law enforcement official and a video posted on a Somali news Web site.

[….]

Today is the first time any of these men have spoken publicly.

They want others to know why they joined al-Shabaab according to a translation by none other than our old buddy Omar Jamal (See all of our coverage on this guy here. We should have made him his own category at RRW).

“We came from the U.S. with a good life and a good education [Edit:  note they are not joining the jihad because of a life of poverty], but we came to fight alongside our brothers of al-Shabaab … to be killed for the sake of God,” one man said in the video, as translated by Omar Jamal, the executive director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center in St. Paul, Minn.

In the video, two men, identifying themselves as Abu-Muslim and Abu Yaxye, say they are “Somali youth” from the United States who are now stationed near the city of Kismayo, more than 300 miles southwest of Mogadishu, according to Jamal. The men say they are talking to media for the first time so others can learn why they joined al-Shabaab, he said.

More on “the American”—- a white guy (note you can see a close-up of him at the Fox report):

A law enforcement official confirmed to FOX News that the man, identified in the video as Abu Mansur al-Amriki, is originally from the United States, but said he has been in Somalia “for some time.” The official said the man is in his late 20s or early 30s, and left the United States “many” years ago.

So what is the big deal about going to Somalia “many” years ago.   Who cares if it’s “many” or a few?

The FBI is looking for ‘missing youth’ cases in other American cities, but are quick to say there is no evidence that they are being trained to return with their newly acquired skills to use against us.   There is no evidence that they are not!

The FBI investigation into how young American men were recruited to join al-Shabaab in Somalia is active in Columbus, Ohio; Cincinnati, Ohio; Boston; Seattle; and San Diego, according to testimony from counterterrorism officials and others at a Senate hearing last month. But, officials said, there is no intelligence to indicate that Somali-Americans who traveled to Somalia are planning attacks inside the United States.

But some are back, we heard that a couple of weeks ago. 

The source familiar with the FBI investigation would not say publicly if authorities know the whereabouts of the men who returned to the United States, nor would the source say if authorities are pursuing arrests in the case. But Muslim leaders in the Minneapolis area told FOX News that they believe arrests are coming.

So what is taking so long?  I’ll bet you a buck it’s illegal to go to a foreign terror training camp and then return to the US.

See our archive of all the ‘missing Somali youths’ (former refugees) stories here.

For new readers and reporters who might be wondering how we came to have all these Somalis in the US, visit this post.

American is believed to be a leader in Al-Shabaab

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update April 6th:  More on “the American” here.

And, he wants your kids!    We have been following the case of the missing Somali youths (former refugees) since it first came to the media’s attention back in November, but here is an unexpected turn of events in the case.

According to the AP, a man of European or Arab descent, speaking English with a North American accent, is shown on an apparent recruitment video asking for your young people to join him in the jihad in Somalia.

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — A man who calls himself an American promotes holy war in Somalia in a video posted this week on an Islamic militant Web site.

A U.S. government contractor who tracks extremist propaganda says the footage is the first to show what may be an American with a senior role in al-Shabab, a Somali group the State Department considers a terrorist organization with links to al-Qaida.

The half-hour video features an amateur English-language rap soundtrack and purports to show an operation against Ethiopian troops in Somalia. It appeared on Web sites where al-Qaida and other militant groups often post messages and videos. A caption says it was filmed on July 15, 2008.

His name is Abu Mansour al-Amriki—the American.

A tall man with long dark hair and a wide smile who appears to be in his 20s and gives his nom de guerre as “Abu Mansour al-Amriki,” or “the American,” urges Muslims around the world to send their children to replace his group’s fallen fighters.

“If you can encourage more of your children, and more of your neighbors, and anyone around you to send people … to this jihad, it would be a great asset for us,” he says.

Al-Amriki speaks English with a North American accent and reads verses from the Quran in fluent classical Arabic. He appears to be of European or possibly Arab descent but it was impossible to independently confirm his nationality or where the video was filmed.

The article does mention American Adam Gadahn’s prominant role with Al-Qaida but those who have seen the film contend this is the first case of an American (he could also be a Canadian?) in a leadership role in the Jihad.

“This is the first time an American has been shown in a leadership/senior role advising/teaching a group of jihadists,” IntelCenter said in an e-mailed analysis. “This is a significant development and likely to be indicative of other developments within the group.”

Update on the shooting yesterday in Binghamton, NY

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I just happened to catch a press conference today at noontime with the Mayor of Binghamton and the Police Chief.   Angela Leach, director of the American Civic Association also read a statement.   See our previous posts on the tragedy here and here.

The Police Chief said the shooter’s name was Jiverly A. Wong (he spelled the last name) and said he believed the man was Vietnamese.  The name isn’t Vietnamese, so I’ll be interested to see what more we learn.

Wong was wearing body armor which the Chief said indicated he was anticipating return fire from law enforcement.  He had permits for his hand guns and those had been acquired in 1996 or 1997.    Wong had been taking English classes at the Civic Association until early March, but had at that time quit.   The Chief also said that Wong was upset because he couldn’t learn English.  Now, besides the name, that doesn’t make sense because we had previously learned he had been in the US for possibly more than two decades.

Of course, if he was mentally handicapped that might explain his inability to learn English and a whole lot more.

By the way, the Chief also mentioned that he was aware of a claim of responsibility by a terrorist group and said the FBI was looking into it, but that it was highly unlikely.

Update later in the afternoon of April 4th:   Wong was ethnically Chinese but is from Vietnam, had recently lost his job, and a friend has quoted him as saying, “I don’t like America, America sucks!”   Photo here also.

Update April 5th:    I wonder why World Relief went out of business in Binghamton.  More from AP:

Wong’s father was well-known in the Binghamton area through his work years ago at the now-defunct World Relief Organization, helping recent immigrants find a doctor and obtain food stamps.

Bizarre update to shooting story

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Fox News is reporting: 

A Pakistani Taliban militant leader has claimed responsibility for the attack on a U.S. immigration center in New York state in which 13 people were killed, Reuters reported.

“I accept responsibility. They were my men. I gave them orders in reaction to U.S. drone attacks,” Baituallah Mehsud told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location on Saturday.

U.S. officials were not immediately available for comment about Mehsud’s claim, Reuters reported, and one Pakistani security analyst dismissed the claim as a publicity stunt.

I’m inclined to agree that Mehsud is claiming responsibility for something he had nothing to do with. If Vietnamese immigrants are joining the jihad, we’re in even more trouble than I’d thought.

America remaking immigrants, or immigrants remaking America?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Somali immigrants remake Minneapolis is the headline of a good piece by David Paulin in The American Thinker today. He comments on the New York Times article that Ann posted on the other day, about Somalis and health care in Minneapolis.  The article is part of a series in the Times called Remade in America, the first part of which I posted on earlier.

Paulin points out that Mexicans make up most of the influx of immigrants into Minneapolis. But he focuses on the Somalis because their cultural differences, their enormous health-care needs and the terrorist connections that are being investigated by the FBI have a greater impact on the city and on America. He points out that the lengthy account of their health care problems makes no mention of female circumcision; presumably none of the doctors or other people quoted mentioned it.

And he goes on to make this comment: 

One of the unstated assumptions of the Times piece is that America is a nation of immigrants. That’s not quite correct. It is a nation of settlers and immigrants. The original settlers from England were White Anglo Saxon Protestants, as the late Harvard political scientist Samuel P. Huntington observed. Later, there were immigrants from Europe, and they adapted to the culture created by the original settlers while making contributions of their own. But in an era of multiculturalism, those days are gone. Now, every culture is equal. What’s more, the WASP and his culture is vilified.

Then he quotes Huntington from his book, Who Are We?:

Contributions from immigrant cultures modified and enriched the Anglo-Protestant culture of the founding settlers. The essentials of that founding culture remained the bedrock of U.S. identity, however, at least until the last decades of the 20th century. Would the United States be the country that it has been and that it largely remains today if it had been settled in the 17th and 18th centuries not by British Protestants but by French, Spanish, or Portuguese Catholics? The answer is clearly no. It would not be the United States; it would be Quebec, Mexico, or Brazil.