Category: Africa

Somali President in Minnesota yesterday to urge Americans to NOT join Al-Shabaab

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

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.

FBI attempting to confirm through DNA testing if Seattle Somali killed peacekeepers in Somalia

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I have a lot to say about this article, but no time to say it yet tonight.  Will follow up tomorrow, but here are the bare bones of this story from Seattle.  For background you might want to first read my post from Friday, here.

The FBI in Seattle is comparing DNA recovered from last week’s suicide bombing in Somalia with that of the man’s relatives, according to a federal law enforcement source familiar with the investigation.

FBI agents are investigating whether an American Somali refugee from Seattle was involved in the bombing on a peacekeeping base in Somalia that killed 21 people.

The father and mother of the Somali man have provided DNA samples to law enforcement officials, Abdirahman Warsame, a Somali-American who operates a Web site called the Terror Free Somalia Foundation, said today.

Warsame, 38, said he tracked down the father, Mohamud Mohamad, Thursday at a Rainier Valley business. The father spoke to him about the suspected death of his 18-year-old son, Omar, and his contacts with investigators, Warsame said.

The father is upset and “mourning the loss of his son,” while being embarrassed about the youth’s apparent connection to the bombing, said Warsame, an American Somali who came to the United States in 1996.

“He’s very sorry about the tragedy” and “ashamed of the whole thing,” Warsame said.

American might have been Somali suicide bomber in deadly attack on African Union peacekeepers

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We’ve seen mention of this over the last few days, but, hey, if the New York Times is reporting it, it must be true.  Well, maybe, maybe not.  But, here is what the NYT said yesterday.

NAIROBI, Kenya — A Somali Web site is claiming that one of the suicide bombers who attacked an African Union base last week in Somalia was from the United States, which, if true, would make him the second known American to carry out a suicide attack.

According to Dayniile.com, a mostly Somali-language Web site, the bomber lived in Washington State until 2007, when he left the United States to join the Shabab, a terrorist group with growing ties to Al Qaeda. Several suicide bombers penetrated an African Union base in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, Sept. 17, killing more than 15 peacekeepers, including the second in command of the 5,000-strong African Union mission in Somalia.

The bombers used United Nations trucks to slip into the base; they apparently had inside information because they struck precisely at a time when high-ranking Somali officials were meeting with African Union commanders to plan an offensive. Some witnesses said the bombers spoke English.

The Shabab took responsibility for the attack. But on Thursday, Shabab officials, when asked about the possible Somali-American connection, said they would not reveal the bombers’ identities.

At least 20 former Somali refugees have left the US and the good life to fight for Allah in Africa.  If this bomber is one of them he would make the 7th American jihadist to die in Somalia (so far!).  See this post in which I had been keeping track of all of the stories on the Somali missing youth case since last November.  Sorry I haven’t kept it up since July, but one of these days I’ll get it updated.  Frankly, I was getting sick of the story!

Al-Amriki says he wants your kids!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Just like the ACORN story that took weeks for the “state-run” media to report, so too FOX News is initially dominating this story of an Alabama boy going to Somalia and becoming a leader of a Jihadi terrorist organization—Al Shabaab.  I’m guessing this whole concept—American born Muslim convert becoming an Al Qeada wannabe—is outside of the mainstream media’s world view.

Abu Mansour al-Amriki — or Omar Hammami as he was known — appears in a video posted online Tuesday by the group al-Shabaab, which has ties to Al Qaeda and was labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S. government last year. In the new video, al-Shabaab fighters pledge their allegiance to Usama bin Laden.

“I ask Allah to grant victory to the [Muslim fighters] in every land and under every sky,” says one fighter in the video, excerpts of which were provided to Fox News by the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). “We ask Allah that the Islamic Nation be liberated from invaders by the next [end of Ramadan] and [an Islamic state] be established by then.”

During the 50-minute video, titled “We Are At Your Command, Usama,” al-Amriki pops up in scenes of apparent military training. In one scene, he stands in the background – a black, bulging vest strapped to his chest – while at least four people whose faces are hidden by cloth point rifles forward.

Al-Amriki has been in Somalia for several years, but he first became a public figure in October 2007, when Al-Jazeera TV featured him in a report on the “common goal” of Al Qaeda and hard-line militants in Somalia. He kept his face hidden.

He showed his face for the first time in April, when a video posted online featured him purportedly leading a group of al-Shabaab militants in an ambush of “the enemy.”

We need more western kids!  (Six former refugees, American-Somalis, have died so far in Somalia.)

Speaking about one man killed in the fight, he said, “We need more like him, so if you can encourage more of your children and more of your neighbors, anyone around, to send people like him to this jihad, it would be a great asset for us.”

Read the rest of the FOX report on how Al-Amriki came to be in Somalia in the first place.

We first reported to you about Al-Amriki here in April.

Al-Shabaab looking for new foreign recruits

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The Daily Nation, a news outlet based in Nairobi, Kenya is reporting that the Jihadist group affiliated with Al-Qaeda is eager to welcome to the cause more Somali ‘youths’ (former refugees*) from the far-flung Diaspora.  As far as we know, Al-Shabaab has gone through five American recruits so far of the 20 or so thought to have gone to Africa for Allah.

The extremist group whose leader was killed by American Special Forces is now defiantly asking more foreign fighters to join it.

The killing of Saleh Nabhan and the subsequent appeal by Al Shabaab for more foreign fighters comes amidst reports that the group is increasing its population of foreigners.

From neighbouring Kenya to distant Australia, Somalis in Diaspora are implicated in the running conflict in Mogadishu.

Mohamud Hassan, 23, a Somali from the State of Minnesota in the United States, died on Thursday, September 3, in Mogadishu. [Hassan is death number five, here]

He had been fighting alongside fellow jihadists (holy warriors) in the war against the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and the presence of peace-keepers sent by the African Union (Amisom) to help the government in Somalia.

Most of the article is just a rehash of what we already know and have reported since we began following this issue, here, last November.

* 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.