Category: Africa

Congressman Keith Ellison: Retrieve Somalis and re-integrate them!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

NOOOOOOO!

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), one of two Muslim Congressmen in the US House of Representatives has called for “retrieving” the missing Minnesota Somalis from Moghadisdu, continuing the theme that is obviously developing to paint these former refugees turned Jihadists as “victims” as one of our commenters reminded us recently*.   From Minnesota Public Radio:

St. Paul, Minn. — Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison said the U.S. government is trying to ensure the safe return of some of the young Somali-American men believed to be fighting with a terrorist group in their homeland.

Ellison said he has been included in classified briefings about efforts to bring the missing men back to the Twin Cities.

At least four Somali-American men from Minnesota who left to fight in the Horn of Africa have died there in recent months.

If the Obama Administration sends even one of our young military people to Somalia, risking their lives to rescue Ellison’s voters, it will create a firestorm of outrage across this country!    Excepting the teenaged (and now dead) Burhan Hassan, the majority of these Somalis who rejected the good life to become jihadi fighters are grown men.

I have an idea!  Send Ellison to talk with Al-Shabaab and RETRIEVE these supposedly gullible men!

Congressman Keith Ellison thinks the U.S. should try to retrieve the Minnesotan men who may have been misled into joining Al-Shabaab and want out.

“We can’t have a knee-jerk emotional reaction,” Ellison said. “We’ve got to have an intelligent reaction. If a young person says, ‘I have been lied to. I don’t like these people. I want to get away from them,’ we should help them do that, as long as we know that does not create a public safety issue for Minnesotans and Americans.”

Ellison wouldn’t offer more details of the plans, saying the discussions were classified. But he said the efforts involve private non-governmental organizations as well as government entities. A State Department official did not respond to requests for interviews.

These MEN pose a danger to the US if returned.

But bringing the remaining recruits back to the U.S. isn’t without risk. John Radsan, a former assistant general counsel for the CIA, said the U.S. government is taking such a heightened interest in the case of the Somali-American fighters because of broader concerns on global terror.

“These people are trained, perhaps over there. They become radicalized over there,” Radsan said. “They are engaged in combat, and if those people can be put on that cycle, it’s only another step before they might come back here to do bad things in the Twin Cities.”

But, nevermind,  Ellison says let’s “re-integrate” them into American culture!

Congressman Ellison agrees that the U.S. government’s first responsibility is to protect its residents. But he also thinks if the recruits pose no threat to national security, they should be allowed to re-integrate into the American culture they left behind.

Mr. Ellison, are we going to take their word for it—that they pose no threat.  And, by the way, they were obviously never integrated into American culture in the first place!

* This is what commenter Mars said when the indictments were unsealed against two of the “youths” who returned from Somalia:

It’s clear to me that there is an attempt being made, by defense attorneys, the Somali community and relatives, to portray these guys as victims. Let’s try to guess how many people these “kids” may have killed themselves. While they may be young, they were/are adults and responsible, just like the rest of us, for their own actions. It’s not some simple youthful folly like getting a body tattoo. Were they influenced by someone? Undoubtedly, but they also have free will. I really see the media attempting to portray them as beguiled innocents , when in fact they were out to willingly create their own victims in the name of Allah

American Al-Shabaab challenges Obama, says Obama’s ‘magical charisma’ won’t cut it

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I told you about Al-Amriki the other day here, but thanks to a tip from Bill this morning you can hear for yourself the American Al-Shabaab mocking Obama and his Cairo speech, here.

The gist of his address is:  You (Obama) can’t fool us with your magical charisma.  There will be no peace for America, we won’t extend our hands to you.  Only our swords will be extended to you.

By the way, I think when Al-Amriki says ‘until you get out of our lands’ he pretty much is implying the whole world eventually, not just a few African and Middle Eastern countries.

Are the Minnesota Somalis who joined Al-Shabaab part of the international Jihad?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Evan Kohlmann,writing at the Counterterrorism Blog, here, seems to come to the conclusion that they are.  Hat tip:  Blulitespecial.

– In an audio recording released on June 1, 2008, the top commander of Shabaab al-Mujahideen, Shaykh Mukhtar Abu Az-Zubair, boasted of how “the Muslim people of Somalia have merged with the most elite fighters from the Shabaab al-Mujahideen Movement… Allah willing, international jihadi units will be launched from the Land of the Two Migrations [the Horn of Africa] to haunt and destroy the infidels and their interests around the world… We are an integral part of the vanguard of the global jihad.”

A self-styled Islamist movement with largely nationalist ambitions, or “an integral part of the vanguard of the global jihad” — will the real Shabaab al-Mujahideen please stand up? At least for the moment, Shabaab increasingly appears to be trotting down the latter path.

See my earlier post on ‘doing it for Allah’ here where I addressed the issue of Somali nationalism (patriotism) vs. the greater cause.

For a list of all the coverage that the missing Somali youths have received since last fall, go 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.

Indictments unsealed in Somali missing youths case, but are they going after the big fish?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I saw this news yesterday (the Fox News story is here), but just couldn’t get too excited to write about it.  So, they indicted a couple of the young men who allegedly went to Somalia for terrorist training, but I want to see the FBI go after the mastermind.  This article today indicates there might be progress in that area and maybe I’ll get my wish.

From the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

First-ever details of Minnesota men training with terrorists in Somalia — learning to fire weapons, building training camps — came to light in court documents released Tuesday. 

One of the two Somali men indicted for providing support to those terrorists pleaded guilty months ago and has been cooperating with the FBI, according to those same documents.

Papers filed by the attorney for Abdifatah Yusuf Isse, 25, of Seattle also provide the first clue to how Isse and other young Somalis were recruited to fight, saying he was approached “at a house of worship.”

The investigation is a big deal for the FBI:

The men are the first to be publicly charged in the sweeping probe — one of the most far-reaching U.S. counterterrorism efforts since 9/11. Special Agent E.K. Wilson said Tuesday that these initial indictments are just the beginning of an “ongoing investigation.”

Isse, who is cooperating with the  government, must be pointing a finger at a “house of worship.”   What a surprise!

In his motion to amend the conditions of Isse’s detention Engh [Isse’s attorney] writes: “Mr. Isse will not be the last defendant indicted. The individuals who recruited him to go to Somalia have been targeted for prosecution. Once charged, they will face a life sentence. Recruiting young men to blow themselves up while killing the innocent at a crowded marketplace is a definition of evil. And this recruitment happened at a house of worship.”

As for Zakaria Maruf, the dead man we discussed here and here (when his sister wrote to us), it appears that others confirm that there is no way he is a big fish in all of this.

Gandi Mohamed, who grew up in the same neighborhood as Maruf and who worships at Abubakar, said he doubts Maruf acted alone.

Mohamed said Maruf was a hothead who often picked fights he couldn’t win. Although “he did calm down and mature” in recent years, Mohamed said, Maruf lacked the “personality, intellect and temperament” to mastermind an extensive recruiting effort.

“For me to go to Somalia right now, I would need my elders to get up there and make connections for me to be safe,” he said. “For him to get there and be connected and be a leader in al-Shabaab, he’d have to have someone influential to make the connection for him.

Yes, indeed!

For new readers, we have an archival post on this entire issue which we have followed closely since it first came to the publics’ attention last fall, here.

Nigerian on student visa carries out elaborate identity fraud scheme

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This story is from Portland, ME (Hat tip:  Susan).   You folks in Maine sure are busy with your African immigrant scams.   This is the third in just the last few months!  First we heard about the home health care raid in Lewiston involving Somalis, then we heard about the woman (what a coincidence, also Nigerian!) posing as an immigrant rights activist who was convicted of embezzling money from the World Bank, and now this!   Nigerian, Mercedes driving, medical student raises money for his elaborate purchases by stealing identities.

From the Portland Press Herald:

PORTLAND — A medical student from Chicago is facing federal charges in connection with an elaborate financial scheme he allegedly carried out while living in Portland and studying at Saint Joseph’s College two years ago.

Olumide Pidan, 30, was charged June 29 in federal court with one count of bank fraud and two counts of aggravated identity theft. But court affidavits say he stole the identities of more than 80 people all over the United States.

If convicted, Pidan could face as much as 34 years in prison.

In court records, U.S. Postal Service investigators say Pidan admitted to using the Social Security numbers and birth dates of two men to set up checking, savings and credit card accounts at Bank of America.

Pidan is accused of inflating the credit limits in those accounts by making fraudulent cash deposits, then transferring cash to himself before bank officials caught wind of the scheme and closed the bogus accounts.

Investigators allege that Pidan stole $85,000 from the bank between January and August of 2007 and used the money for himself and friends. Some of his spending included $3,235 for items from Gucci in New York City, flowers delivered to three women in three different states, and $1,000 on designer shoes, according to court records.

Investigators say Pidan admitted to using the identities of between 80 and 100 people to steal money from various banks, although he only faces charges for misusing the identity of two men – one from Pennsylvania and one from Connecticut.

Read the rest of the article and ponder the fact that if this guy is not convicted and sent away, he could be your doctor some day!

I swear, these scams take some training!  There must be seminars given in Africa (or in the case of food stamp fraud, in the Middle East) on how to put a scam together and sucker us dumb Americans.   They probably even target some states as having more naive do-gooders than others.