Update April 6th: More on this story here.
Here we go again—one more story in a long line of stories about possible Somali terror networking and fundraising in the US.
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Federal authorities have been questioning several U.S.-based supporters of an American citizen originally from Somalia who leads a group that advocates for the rights of people living in the northern part of the embattled African country, The Associated Press has learned.
Suleman Ahmed, president of the group known as SSC Somalia, was briefly detained a year ago in Kenya on suspicions of terrorism, and says he believes authorities in Columbus, Ohio, are looking into the same allegations.
“Somebody approached them and told them that I am a terrorist and SSC is a terrorist group,” Ahmed told the AP.
“I think that’s what they’re trying to find out, which is something that does not exist.”
Fred Alverson, spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Columbus, declined to comment.
As many as 13,000 Somalis live in the Columbus area, according to the most recent Census data, although Somali community leaders maintain the figure is much higher. The city has the second highest concentration of Somali immigrants in the U.S. after Minneapolis. [Well, actually San Diego is claiming it has more Somalis, here—ed]
Somalis began arriving in the United States in the early 1990s* after their country — which has not had a functioning government in two decades — disintegrated amid a civil war.
Ahmed, a resident of Columbus for more than a decade, says his organization has only one goal: to protect residents of the region in northern Somalia where his clan lives, and ultimately to seek a functioning, unified Somalia.
These back and forth trips to Somalia are not new to us. My question is, if Somalia is so dangerous and Somali are seeking refuge here, why keep going back and forth?
Ahmed was last in Somalia in December for about two weeks. In March 2010, he was arrested in Nairobi, Kenya, on suspicion of terrorism along with two other men as they tried to board a plane to Somalia. All three were released after a day. Ahmed blamed the arrest on “African politics.”
Federal investigators have been concerned for years about alleged terrorist recruiting in U.S. Somali communities.
Somali women going door-to-door for Somali terror group!
Last year, federal authorities questioned a handful of Somali women in Columbus who raised money door-to-door for health care aid in their native country in a case that tied the money to terrorists.
A federal indictment issued in Minnesota said one Columbus resident — who was not charged and not identified — helped a Minnesota woman raise money for al-Shabab.
Ahmed, US Citizen, father of 9 kids and he ran a home health care business! Readers should know that along with food stamp fraud, home health care businesses run by immigrants are the second best way to scam the US taxpayer.
Ahmed, 44, came to the United States in 1995 and lived in Phoenix and Minneapolis before moving to Columbus in 1999. He became a citizen in 2001.
He is a married father of nine children who recently sold a home-health care business and now focuses full time on his duties with SSC. He travels throughout the country encouraging people to donate directly to families in the SSC region. Several members of his family still live there.
LOL! Wait until you see the comment I’m posting next from a reader in Columbus!
* Actually we began bringing Somalis to the US in the 1980’s. For new readers, a 2008 post in which I compiled all the numbers of Somalis coming to the US each year from the first stats I found beginning in the 1980’s is here. Almost every day this old post is the top post or one of the top most visited posts at RRW. You should also know that the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement is now hiding the numbers from Congress because they have not submitted a legally required Annual Report to Congress since 2007, here. We continue to resettle Somalis by the thousands each year.