Update: Here is a story I missed on Friday. FBI director says Somali terrorists could attack within the US.
We reported awhile back (here) that Somali President, Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, would be visiting US cities with large Somali populations to look for support for his beleaguered government and to urge former Somali refugees* not to return to Africa and join the jihadist Al-Shabaab terrorists that are trying to bring down his “moderate” Muslim government.
Here is what AP says about his speech in Minneapolis yesterday:
ST. PAUL, Minn. — The president of Somalia on Sunday denounced the recruiting of young men from Minnesota’s huge Somali community for terrorist activity in his war-ravaged homeland, and said he plans to work with the U.S. government to bring those still alive back home. [So, if the US brings back trained terrorists, then what? Do they get prison time or a slap on the wrist and release?]
President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed spoke with The Associated Press while visiting the Minneapolis area, where authorities believe as many as 20 young Somali men — possibly recruited by a vision of jihad to fight — returned to the impoverished nation over the last two years.
At least three have died in Somalia, including one who authorities believe was the first American suicide bomber. Three others have pleaded guilty in the U.S. to terror-related charges.
“We believe this is a wrong action, that these young men were wronged, they were robbed out of their life. Their parents were wronged,” Ahmed told the AP through an interpreter. “The laws of the United States were violated. The security of Somalia was violated. So we condemn (them) without reservation.
[….]
Ahmed is in Minnesota for three days as he tries to build support for his struggling government. He’s met with scholars, university students, former Somali leaders, women, elders and others.
Sunday evening, he spoke to about 5,000 people at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. The crowd cheered when Ahmed again condemned the terrorist recruiting.
Then this comment is questionable.
Ahmed told the AP that the young men who left the area “were stolen and taken without the knowledge of their parents and imams.” He said he met with imams from area mosques and “we agreed that they were really sorry with what happened, which tarnished their image and that of our religion.”
The FBI investigation is not yet complete. Authorities are attempting to find out just what role the local mosques did play in the Jihadist recruitment scheme. Some parents of dead “kids” still believe the mosques were involved.
I wonder why Ahmed is going to Chicago and not Seattle. Seattle is another recruitment site where the FBI is still trying to determine if the remains of a blown-to-bits suicide bomber are those of a former refugee from Seattle, here. Also, one of those already indicted in the case was living in Seattle, here.
*For new readers: The US State Department has admitted over 80,000 Somali refugees to the US in the last 25 years and then last year had to suspend family reunification because widespread immigration fraud was revealed through DNA testing.