Month: July 2011

Clearing up a Somali backlog

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I have so many articles open to write about, and therefore in order to move on to other issues, below are just some Somali stories you might want to visit:

Another Somali “youth” involved in helping former refugees return to Africa for Jihad training has plead not guilty.  His mother says he has a brain tumor, here.

One Minneapolis Somali tries to keep the “kids” from going to Africa, here.

The newly formed country of South Sudan has banned Somalis from entering the country, here.  Changes its mind, here.

Drought stricken Somalia needs humanitarian aid but we won’t send it unless Al-Shabaab promises not to steal it or kill the aid workers, here.

Another Somali “youth” killed in Edmonton, Canada, here.   Arrest made—Arab Mursal Sugule, here.

Amnesty International says the “international community” must stop recruitment of child soldiers in Somalia, here.  Hey, Amnesty, why don’t you go do it—tell the Islamic Jihadists in Al-Shabaab to stop being so bad ’cause the international community doesn’t like it.

Three Somali pirates charged with murdering Americans, here.

Movin’ on, getting bored with all the Somali problems….

Comment worth noting: Somalis are a very dysfunctional community….

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

…..so they could never get it together to establish Shariah law.

This is a comment from a reader named Some1notsomali to an old post (Why so many Somalis in Minneapolis?) and he is responding to Allahsoldier (a commenter, an African American convert, who hasn’t been around for awhile).

One of the things that Some1notsomali points out so well is that one cannot compare how immigrants to America fared a hundred years ago BEFORE WE HAD THE MODERN WELFARE STATE that Somalis and others have learned to use to its fullest.

Some1notsomali (but apparently a Muslim):

Salaam Allah Soldier,

I read your posts and would like to offer you my thoughts on Somalis.

But first I would like to let you know that I understand where you coming from. For any black American their is no doubt that this country did wrong to their ancestors and that today it continues to fail black America.

For all those who want to blame the AA (African American) community for it’s ills you need to realize that it is Majority America that is policing her neighborhoods, dictating her laws, educating her children etc… Since Majority America reserves its exclusive right to do these things it should take responsibility for the shortcomings of such a historic and very American community.

Now about Somalis. It should be noted that the elders generally rely on social assistance, although a number of them are at least partially employed. Among the youth they almost without question have some kind of employment and although I would say care giver is a common occupation and one that is less popular among native born Americans, you do see Somalis working in more respectable fields and also in customer service (the existence of their community creates a need for native speakers in the social services and businesses).

The youth are also able to benefit from educational assistance because of their parents low incomes and because their jobs are usually either low paying or part time, under 15k annually.

This country has done so much to help Somalis and other refugee communities, it has given their parents monthly income, paid for the youths education all the way to a bachelors degree, and every Somali I have met has nothing but contempt for this country. Even worse is that because so much affluence (disposable income) exists in some households because the youth all have jobs, live at home and have of the basic needs of the family being met by the elders unearned income (section 8 housing, welfare, food stamps, passing excess children around for earned income tax credit) [I suspected the earned income tax credit was being used this way, so its nice to see confirmation—ed] crime is attractive to the youth who can’t find jobs. With the economy not improving this will become worse, and the criminal elements within this community are becoming more sophisticated, a prostitution ring was recently busted in MN.

RR is wrong to be concerned with Shariah …

Somalis are a very dysfunctional community. The women often have relationships with men (even sex, and even the ones who wear jilbab), it is extremely common. To them religion is a revolving door, the hijab is something worn as a convenience, either to feel pious or as a fashionable article. Unlike Pakistani Pathan and Arab Yemeni communities Somali’s do not seem viable candidates for living in a state within a state societies. Most families have absentie fathers and the few with a male head of the household often have a step father and not the original father. Combine this with big city environment most live in and you will see that your fears of a shariah community are not realistic. No one in the family is strong enough to dictate how others should live within the family, unlike Yemeni and certain Pakistani communities. With that said many do have attachments to their mothers, so although the traditional concept of family does not pervade their society, certain tradition which you will never have to deal with (primarily marriage ceremonies) will be dictated by the mother.

So I guess what this means is that they can’t organize themselves to push for Shariah law (but by comparison the Pakistanis and Yemenis could?)   However, those Somali youths who went off to Jihad training seemed to be pretty good at organizing, here.

Mohamed changes his plea, says he helped Minneapolis “youths” go to Jihad training….

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

…..some to kill, others to be killed.

On the eve of his Minneapolis trial for supporting terrorism Omer Abdi Mohamed admitted his guilt—he was only motivated by Ethnic Nationalism* to defend Somalia from the evil Ethiopians (never mind that Al Shabaab is a terror group with international reach).

From the Pioneer Press:

On the flickering concourse monitors at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, it was listed as Northwest Flight 56, the 9:25 p.m. departure to Amsterdam.

But over 40 days in late 2007, it could’ve been called the al-Shabaab Shuttle. The flight was the preferred first leg of the trip made by young Somali men from the Twin Cities, bound for their homeland to fight for the Islamic militant group al-Shabaab.

On Monday, on the eve of his trial in federal court, Omer Abdi Mohamed stood before a judge and admitted that in late 2007, he helped seven men make the exodus to Somalia. Once abroad, some of them took up arms for al-Shabaab; some blew themselves up in suicide attacks; and some returned, disenchanted, after they sampled the foul taste of war.

Mohamed, 26, of St. Anthony was to be the first person to be tried on charges stemming from what federal prosecutors have characterized as one of this nation’s longest and broadest anti-terrorism investigations.

He had maintained his innocence, his lawyer proclaiming that Mohamed had been interested only in helping defend his homeland against Ethiopian troops that many of his countrymen viewed as invaders.

But over the weekend, he stared at a government plea offer, along with the specter of 50 years in prison if convicted on the six federal counts he faced. He blinked.

“It was a hard choice for Omer, but he’s got a 2-year-old boy and he’s going to have a (newborn)…boy in six weeks,” lawyer Peter Wold said.

For Mohamed the deal is pretty good—he will get a wrist slap and a much shorter sentence—but it’s a big win for others.  The FBI will not have to show the world how they have screwed up back in 2007 and are still screwing up as we learn MORE “youths” have left for Africa.  The local mosque will continue to skate under the radar. The public won’t hear more bad publicity about the “grateful” refugees, nor hear about how the Jihadi-trained Somalis might come “home” to America with a new skill on a return flight of the Al-Shabaab shuttle.

Maybe Rep. Peter King will generate more information flowing to the public with his hearing later this month on Jihad recruitment within the Somali community, here.

*Ethnic Nationalism is understandable, everyone is allowed a little defense of their homeland from invasion, right?—everyone but Americans that is!

Seward Neighborhood crime incident troubles son

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday a reader sent us this story about a man with Alzheimer’s getting lost in the Seward Neighborhood of Minneapolis.  I see that Seward is described as “vibrant” here—always a bad sign (code for diversity is strength).  I also see that I’ve written about Seward before, here, when three Somalis were murdered (by Somali thugs) in a Somali market there in January 2010.

So, here is the story posted on a website entitled, e-democracy.org.  I am well aware of the fact that this same thing could happen anywhere there are too many thugs with time on their hands and a confused man with a billfold full of money who come in contact with each other.

I just thought I would relay a recent experience, not that I think anything can be done, but so the neighborhood can put a face on some of the statistics we read about.

A week ago this last Thursday (10 days ago), my father was visiting from out of state. He has visited us many times in the 15 years we’ve lived in the neighborhood, and he enjoys taking walks down Milwaukee Ave. Unfortunately, he suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, and this time he could not find his way back to our house. He did have a cell phone, but there was no charge on it.

He called the house to say he was lost (we’re not sure what phone he used), but my daughter answered and told him to call me at work, as her mom was out and I would be the one who would know where he was and how to get home. Unfortunately I never got a call, but I’m not sure he can remember the number any more.

At any rate, he was missing for 3-4 hours. He somehow crossed Franklin Ave., we think to go to the Holiday station. He ended up walking down 9th, behind Holiday, and along the freeway. At the corner of 9th and 24th Avenue (which is two blocks from where he started!), he ran into a group of young Somali men hanging out on the corner. He engaged them in conversation, and at some point, asked if he could use one of their cell phones, which they agreed to. He didn’t get through to anyone because we were all out looking for him (I know, bad idea, but we weren’t thinking very clearly). He had phone numbers on a card in his wallet and when he took out his wallet, they observed that he had a lot of cash ($800 in twenties, I know, I know, another bad idea, but he was planning on giving a cash gift to his granddaughter who was getting married that weekend.)

They knocked him down and he hit his head on the concrete causing 2 or 3 big bumps, bruises and scratches. He had a big bruise on his hip as well. Luckily, I was riding my bike around looking for him, and I saw the cop car and ambulance, went over to investigate and found him before they took him off to a hospital. We took him to HCMC to have a CT scan done on his head to make sure everything was ok. He will be fine physically, but he was pretty shaken up, and this event seemed to be a big set back in his ability to deal with his Alzheimer’s.

There were a lot of things he did wrong, but it still pains me that my father was seriously injured while visiting me in Seward neighborhood. I know the people who did it were taking advantage of an opportunity, and didn’t stalk him, or necessarily plan it in advance, but there were a handful of women outside who witnessed the event yet would not give any descriptions to the police.  [Somalis do not report on their own kind—ed]

The only conclusion that I can draw is that if Seward is going to be the landing spot for large numbers of immigrants, some of whom don’t have the necessary skills to get a good job or to find a way to exist without turning to crime, then maybe we need add’l resources to help mitigate and buffer the effects of this crime. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-immigrant, but I am anti-crime, and if crime is emanating from this community, then we need to focus more on the reasons why and try and do something about it.  [More resources, what does that mean? More taxpayer money thrown at the problem? Maybe its time to just turn off the Somali immigration spigot, but it may be too late—ed]

I love living here and while I consider it a very safe place to live, I’m not sure my father will ever come back again, and for that I’m sad and regretful.

Just wanted to give some background to what will be noted as an assault in the crime statistics.

Khadra would probably tell us that Seward is part of the Somali colonization strategy.

Addendum:  For some reason this post has generated a lot of traffic to RRW.   So, assuming some of you are new to the subject of Somali refugee resettlement, see this old post which is still daily on our list of most visited posts about how many Somalis have come to the US through refugee resettlement.

More refugee terrorist hearings — this time in the House

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here is a short news story from Fox News (hat tip: one of my friends from Tennessee) alerting us to a hearing scheduled for later this month in the House of Representatives on the recruitment of Somali refugees to return to Africa for Jihad training.

The Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee will hold another hearing on Muslim radicalization.
Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., plans the third in a series of controversial hearings for July 27. It will focus on the

Somalia-based al-Shabaab terrorist organization and its recruiting tactics in the U.S.

“In Minnesota, Ohio, and other states, dozens of young Muslim males have been recruited, radicalized, and then taken from their communities for overseas terrorist training by al-Shabaab,” King said in a statement. “This coordinated and ongoing recruitment and radicalization of young Muslim men in the U.S. is a serious and growing threat to our homeland security and simply cannot be ignored.”

King has been widely criticized by Muslim groups and some Democratic members of the Homeland Security Committee for holding hearings that focus strictly on Muslim radicalization rather than all types of radicalization.

Just a reminder, last week the Senate Homeland Security Committee held a hearing on how Iraqi refugees with links to terrorist activities in Iraq got into the US, here.

This morning we reported that a trial has opened in the Minnesota Al Shabaab recruitment case.