I posted yesterday about a new book on Somalia whose author contends the following, according to a reviewer at the Star Tribune:
It turns out that one of the largest populations of Somalis outside their national borders is in the Twin Cities. Some of those residents are almost surely linked to violent organizations overseas and thus might constitute a terrorist threat, according to Fergusson.
When I saw that I thought to myself: I think it’s over, it’s been pretty quiet on the Islamic terror recruitment front. I guess I was wrong because later in the day I came across this story about Al-Shabaab using twitter to recruit among the refugee population in Minnesota.
From CBS Minnesota:
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – An international terror group is once again targeting young Somali men and women in the Twin Cities.
This time the group is using social media to get them to travel to Somalia to fight.
A propaganda arm of Al-Shabaab has been tweeting information about a video that will be released featuring the true stories of Minnesota Somalis who died fighting.
Two years ago, more than 20 men from Minneapolis left for Somali. According to community leader Abdirizak Bihi, the Somali community knew this new recruiting effort was coming.
They’ve seen this tactic before, Al-Shabaab praising the Minnesota teens who left to fight jihad, calling them martyrs, in order to get others to follow in their footsteps.
The “path to paradise” is how Al-Shabaab is trying to sell war to young people here in the Twin Cities.
[….]
The tweets glorify those who fight by saying, “True to the covenant some have sacrificed their blood for the sake of Allah and attained Martyrdom while others are still on the battlefield. They were like their peers deeply immersed into the Western society before Allah opened their eyes and instilled in them the spirit of Jihad.”
For new readers: We have resettled more than 100,000 Somali refugees to cities large and small in the US over the last 25 years. See one of the most widely read posts here at RRW. Large numbers went to Minneapolis, and now they are spreading out throughout the state. In three years since 9/11 ( Bush years 2004, 2005, 2006) the number of Somalis arriving topped 10,000 per year. Those refugees then began bringing in the family (chain migration!) until 2008 when shock of shocks! the State Department discovered that as many as 30,000 Somalis had lied about their kinship and weren’t related at all. The State Department then closed the “family reunification” program for Somalis. It has recently been re-opened for new and legit family members, but they have no intention of finding and deporting the liars.
The first few years of our coverage of the Somali youths returning to Somalia for Jihad training is here (began in 2008). Thank those Minnesota Lutherans (Catholics and Evangelicals too) for bringing us the joys of multiculturalism!
Here is the latest shocker! Just when Somalia has a new government and is encouraging Somalis to return home, the US is on target to make 2013 rival those Bush years by bringing in thousands of Somali “refugees.” So far this year, as of July 31st, the US State Department has brought to your towns and cities 6,185 !!! Somalis. Check out all the numbers in FY 2013 by going here, then click on Refugee Admission Reports as of July 31.