Al-Shabaab terrorist recruitment video released in US

08/10/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

But, you likely won’t get to see it because according to this report it’s been pulled down already.

The film (we first heard about here on Thursday), described as professional and well-made, features three of the “youths” (for the first time I see one was not a Somali refugee) we chronicled ad nauseam starting back in 2008 beginning here who thumbed their noses at the good life given to them by the US taxpayer and refugee resettlement contractors and went back to Somalia for Jihad training.

Abdi Bihi: Not enough “programs” or jobs for Somali youths to keep them in Minnesota!

Thanks to reader Cliff, here is the story at Fox News 9:

MINNEAPOLIS (KMSP) –

A new recruiting video from the terror group al-Shabaab posted to YouTube and called “The Path to Paradise” focuses on the journey of three men who left Minnesota to die in Somalia.

The video, which demonstrated high production values, has since been taken down; however, FOX 9 News obtained a copy of the never-before-seen footage of three young men who left Minneapolis six years ago to join training camps in Somalia.

All three of the men profiled in the video — including the only non-Somali to be recruited — are now dead, killed either in combat or in suicide attacks.

[….]

The nearly 40-minute video features Dahir Gure, Mohammed Hassan and Troy Kastigar, all of whom left for Somalia in 2007 and 2008. The video chronicles the path of the three “from the Twin Cities to the Land of 2 Migrations,” and each of them spoke directly to those who are still in Minnesota.

“I would like to speak to my brothers in western countries,” Gure said.

The story discusses how the newly-minted Jihadists went back home to Africa supposedly to fight the ‘invading’ Ethiopians (that was their story and one some US Senators bought, here, in 2009), but it was (and is) a war against the infidel culture of the West especially America.

Although over the years we give Abdi Bihi credit for sounding the alarm and fighting the radicalization of the refugee “kids,” this is not about how much stuff Americans give refugees, it is the prevalence of radical teaching in local mosques and the lack of parenting in the Somali community (indeed the parents probably are encouraging attendance in radical mosques).

Here Bihi sounds like he has been talking to too many ‘progressive’ activists there in Minnesota:

“It is targeting, for the first time, specifically our young men and women,” said Abdi Bihi, who works with Somali youth and whose own nephew, Burhan Hassan, went to Somalia and died.

Bihi said the video indicates al-Shabaab needs new soldiers and is hoping to find them in the large population living in the Twin Cities, where unemployment is high and there are few programs to help young Somali men and women.

By the way, most of the Somali youths who gave up life in America to fight for Allah were well-educated (thanks to the US taxpayer) and had bright futures ahead of them. A shiny new community center with more basketball courts was not going to hold them in Minneapolis (one proposal years ago). Material ‘stuff’ and the good life does not trump Allah’s message to kill the infidels!

For new readers, we have probably a hundred posts on the ‘Somali youths’ who left America or Canada or Europe to learn to be Jihadists. If you type those words (Somali youths) into our search function this is the extensive archive you get.

Why so many Somalis in Minneapolis? This post is almost daily one of our ‘top posts.’

Pennsylvania: Somali baby feared murdered by man allegedly on terror watch list

08/09/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Diversity is beautiful alert!

‘Paki’ arrested in the disappearance of Somali baby in bucolic Pennsylvania where the likes of Church World Service is changing America.

Here is another Somali in Pennsylvania story (see Erie earlier today) this time one with an apparently sad ending. A Pakistani man is under arrest for kidnapping his Somali girl friend’s baby. Authorities near York, PA are searching for the 7-month-old, but are not hopeful of finding him alive.

Here is how the article in the Philadelphia Inquirer begins, but please read the whole sorry tale. (Hat tip: pungentpeppers)

A PAKISTANI NATIVE who a source said is on the FBI’s terrorist-watch list kidnapped his girlfriend’s baby from an Upper Darby home Sunday and may have killed the 7-month-old and buried his lifeless body along a rural roadside in York, police said.

Ummad Rushdi, 30, has been charged with kidnapping and related offenses after he was arrested early yesterday at his home in York. The baby, Hamza Ali, was last seen alive Saturday night and hasn’t been found, said Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood.

“Our hope is that the child is alive, but the reality of the investigation thus far . . . is that the baby is probably dead,” Chitwood said.

The baby’s mother, Zainab Gaal, 20, who was born in Somalia and raised in Yemen, began dating Rushdi just three or four weeks ago, police said. Gaal and her son were already living with Rushdi and his brother at their home in York, police said. Authorities didn’t immediately know when Gaal came to the United States, and did not know the whereabouts or identity of her child’s father.

For more information on the Somali woman, the police and reporters should check with the US State Department and the Refugee Resettlement contractors operating in Pennsylvania. Off the top of my head, the major contractors in PA include Church World Service, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (yes, they resettle Muslims too), US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, and the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. One of them will surely know where to reach this woman’s baby’s father or her extended family. Almost all Somalis in the US came in through Refugee Resettlement or the chain migration related to it.

****update**** We hear that the young mother is from Lewiston, Maine. So, check with Catholic Charities (primary refugee contractor bringing Somalis to Maine) up there to see if they will help find her family.

Last week, the three adults and baby Hamza traveled to Upper Darby to stay with Rushdi’s parents at their well-kept stone rowhouse on Chestnut Street near Powell Lane, police said.

Several days before the kidnapping, Rushdi allegedly hurt the baby’s shoulder, Chitwood said. Gaal wanted to take Hamza to the hospital because she feared his shoulder may have been broken, but Rushdi and his parents wanted to “self-medicate” the boy, Chitwood said.

On Sunday morning, Gaal and Rushdi’s family awoke to find Rushdi and Hamza missing, police said. Rushdi’s brother began to relay calls between Rushdi and Gaal, saying that the baby was fine and that Rushdi would return him to Upper Darby, Chitwood said.

Read on for the rest of what the police think may have happened…..

For new readers, Pennsylvania is the 11th state in the list of states receiving the largest number of refugees with 14,365 having been sent there by the US State Department between 2007 and 2013. See where your state ranks by clicking here.

Tensions flare in Germany over housing for asylum-seekers

08/09/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Your average middleclass German (country class!) is rising up to oppose plans by the government elite (ruling class!) to put asylum-seekers (from mostly Muslim countries) in their neighborhoods. I wonder why?—here, perhaps, is one reason we posted earlier this week.

Berlin here we come! Fall 2012 pro-immigrant march. Note the red flag with the clenched fist—it’s not a sign of peace.

From AP at ABC News:

Daniel Krawczyk is convinced bad things will happen to his Berlin neighborhood once the refugees move in: “They’ll break into our basements,” he says, “steal our kids’ cell phones, bring crime and violence and take away our jobs.”

The 29-year-old janitor in the eastern outskirts of Berlin is among many locals up in arms over the city’s plans to turn an empty high school into a center for up to 400 asylum seekers, part of growing opposition to refugee shelters across the country.

The boat-is-full mentality in Germany is finding an echo in the government: “Even an economically strong country like Germany is considerably challenged” by the influx, Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich said recently, in an apparent attempt to reflect voter fears two months ahead of general elections. Meanwhile the far-right is exploiting anti-refugee fears, seeking new supporters as its members participate in rallies against new asylum shelters.

Al-Hijra!

About 43,000 people applied for asylum in Germany in the first six months of 2013, almost double the roughly 23,000 for the same period in 2012. While the numbers are a far cry from the hundreds of thousands who flowed into Germany at the height of the 1990s Yugoslavia wars, German cities still find themselves struggling to cope with the influx of recent refugees, mainly from Syria, Chechnya and Afghanistan [likely all Muslims!—ed]. Germany is the top destination for refugees to the European Union, followed by Sweden, France and Britain, all of which also received thousands of asylum applications during the last few months.

Backlash by the middle class was swift!

….. Berlin authorities were caught off guard by the hostile backlash in Hellersdorf — a neighborhood that is almost entirely German — and by the speed with which the far-right, anti-immigrant National Democratic Party moved to exploit that anger.

No sooner had the plan been announced than posters appeared proclaiming “Nein zum Heim” — “No to the Shelter.” Leaflets and a Facebook page warned that the neighborhood would be overrun with thieves, littered with garbage and that the playground would no longer be safe for German children.

To hell with what the residents think!

Despite the resistance, Berlin authorities insist they will push ahead with the center, although they have postponed moving asylum seekers into the building — and won’t say when the move will take place.

Read it all!

Why is it that most times the country class ‘gets-it’ intuitively?

Maybe the German government needs to look to Switzerland for a new plan (btw this was our top post yesterday and was read around the world!).

Check out our category on Europe with its 400-plus posts on problems there.

The Photo can be found here.

Islamic terror recruitment in Minneapolis not over yet?

08/08/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I posted yesterday about a new book on Somalia whose author contends the following, according to a reviewer at the Star Tribune:

Islamic terrorists using twitter to encourage refugees to find the “path to paradise!”

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.

The world’s most dangerous place is Somalia

08/07/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

That is the conclusion of author James Fergusson in a new book aptly titled ‘The World’s most dangerous place.’

Interesting to us is this review by Steve Weinberg at The Star Tribune in which Weinberg draws attention to Fergusson’s research in the United States, in Little Mogadishu/Minneapolis. Emphasis below is mine.

Weinberg:

When James Fergusson, a journalist based in Edinburgh, Scotland, decided to write a book about a chaotic African nation, he initially had no clue that his research would require a visit to Minneapolis.

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. He was drawn to Minneapolis in large part by the presence of Omer Abdi Mohamed, a resident who had pleaded guilty to a U.S. government charge of conspiring to recruit warriors for possible illegal activities within and outside North America.

Beyond Omer’s case, Fergusson wondered why the Twin Cities had become the destination of between 75,000 to 100,000 Somalis, especially given the frigid weather — frigid, at least, compared with the parched heat in the Horn of Africa.

Enter those Lutherans again! Weinberg continues:

Here is part of the answer, in a fascinating paragraph written by Fergusson: Lutherans whose ancestors arrived from Scandinavia to settle Minnesota run social service agencies efficiently and generously. [With taxpayer money!—ed] “A number of voluntary Somali migrants, mostly professionals with ambitions to study or to set up businesses, had been drawn to the Twin Cities even before the [Somali] civil war by the abundance of jobs and social housing on offer, at a time when the local economy was conspicuously booming. Word soon spread of the good life in Minnesota, making the state the destination of choice when the main refugee exodus began in the early 1990s.” When Fergusson visited Minneapolis, he identified “the de facto parliament of the Somali community” as a Starbucks coffee shop just off Riverside Avenue.

While in the Twin Cities, Fergusson concluded that the large refugee population consists mostly of hardworking Somalis. But he demonstrates that the recruitment of suicide bombers has occurred in the Twin Cities, and that various gangs of Somali refugees have shattered the peace of the Twin Cities from time to time.

I do hope Fergusson went beyond the notion that Somalis ‘found their way to Minneapolis.’ We have extensively chronicled how Minneapolis and increasingly elsewhere in Minnesota has been targeted for refugee resettlement by the US State Department and resettlement contractors like the US Conference of Catholic Bishops/Catholic Charities and the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services/Lutheran Social Services which are PAID to resettle them in “welcoming” cities (not so welcoming cities too!).

Here is a 2011 post we wrote explaining in some detail how the contractors brought the Somalis to Minneapolis, most didn’t find their way there! Perhaps now they do, but when there is no serious and sustained squawking by the community as it reaches overload, the contractors just keep pouring in the refugees. This 2011 post is daily one of our most-read posts here at RRW.