By the time I read through this article at World Net Daily, I thought I was reading a summary of Refugee Resettlement Watch posts from the last year! Except I didn’t know about this Northern Virginia cluster of Somalis.
Fearing the next terror attack could emerge from America’s growing Somali refugee population, federal authorities have stepped up surveillance in Somali communities – including a large enclave just outside Washington.
In fact, WND has learned that the Baileys Crossroads area of Northern Virginia – about 10 miles from the capital – was a critical focus of security investigations in advance of the presidential inauguration in January.
Investigators say a troubling number of the area’s Somali men hold “militant” anti-American views and sympathize with al-Qaida. They typically work as taxi drivers, gathering at local coffeehouses during their breaks, as well as at a nearby mosque tied to 9/11.
We told you about the inauguration scare at the time.
“Somalis were the hot topic during the inauguration, and they still are,” said a senior investigator assigned to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force in Washington. “They’re very militant, and they’re all over that area.”
What do you know! Food stamp fraud too.
The local [Minneapolis] Somali community has also been the subject of federal investigations into terrorist money-laundering. Agents suspect Somali refugees have funneled millions of dollars from food-stamp fraud and drug sales through Somali grocery stores into overseas bank accounts used by al-Qaida.
Then here is the Nashville connection as well.
A large number of Somali refugees have also settled in Nashville, Tennessee, stirring up fears of radicalization there as well. A predominantly Somali mosque in Nashville – the Al-Farooq Islamic Center – sells Islamic texts and tapes that support violent jihad, according to former federal investigator Dave Gaubatz, who recently conducted an undercover investigation at the mosque.
“The leadership is very sharia-compliant,” he said, “and has several manuals by Islamic terrorists, as well as lectures by Ali al-Timimi,” a radical American Muslim cleric who in 2005 was convicted of soliciting violent jihad.
And, another locale we mention frequently, Shelbyville, TN. It is all here!
The suburbs of Shelbyville and Dover have also become Somali strongholds. Local newspapers have reported that police are hesitant to even patrol after dark at the apartment complexes where the Somalis live.
It is a good summary, read it all.