Tag: al-Shabaab

Last of 4 San Diego Somalis sentenced in terror funding case

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is the case we have reported on previously where a local Imam was sentenced to prison as well.

Ahmed Nasir Taalil Mohamud
http://shabelle.net/

From NBC San Diego here, but I see it is a story carried by many outlets over the weekend.

A U.S. District judge sentenced a Somali immigrant to six years in prison Friday for his part in a San Diego-based plot to support terrorist group al-Shabaab.

Ahmed Nasir Taalil Mohamud, a cab driver from Anaheim, is the last of four people to be sentenced after they were found guilty in February 2013 during a three-week trial.

U.S. attorney Laura Duffy said Nasir, Basaaly Saeed Moalin, Mohamed Mohamed Mohamud and Issa Doreh conspired to give money to al-Shabaab.

The prosecution alleged that Nasir collected funds from donors in Orange County to send to the militia group, which is known for its suicide bombings, civilian assassinations and use of improvised explosive devices, according to Duffy.

The U.S State Department officially listed al-Shabaab as a foreign terrorist organization in 2008.

During Friday’s sentencing, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey T. Miller said while Nasir was the least culpable member of the conspiracy and is a refugee from war-torn Somalia, his offenses were “very serious.”

Nasir’s co-conspirators were sentenced last November. Cab driver Basaaly Saeed Moalin was sentenced to 18 years, Mohamed Mohamed Mohamud – an imam at a local mosque – was sentenced 13 years, and Issa Doreh was sentenced to 10 years for working at a money transmitting business that helped move the illegal funds.

Hey come on Congress, let’s see a bill which would direct the US State Department to cover the cost of expensive trials and incarceration (instead of the state and local jurisdiction!) where “refugees” they admitted to the US commit crimes.

Judge reschedules sentencing date for Somali woman who sent funds to terror group, lied about it

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is a story from last week, so you may have seen it elsewhere, but even late it is worth posting because it contains a few bits of useful information.  (My apologies to the reader who sent this—I’ve lost track of who it was!)

Judge Davis wants to know if she would be deported after completing her sentence.
http://www.mnd.uscourts.gov/MDL-Baycol/judge-michael-davis.shtml

Before he sentences her for perjury, which carries a maximum sentence of 5 years in the slammer, Chief District Judge Michael Davis wants to know if she would likely be deported upon her release from prison.

We do deport to Somalia now.

We first told you about this case, here in August 2013.

From the Pioneer Press:

A woman who admitted she lied for the terrorist group al-Shabaab will have to wait until April to learn her punishment.

Saynab Abdirashid Hussein, a former Minneapolis woman studying nursing in Tennessee, was to be sentenced Tuesday in federal court on a count of perjury. But midway through the hearing, Chief U.S. District Judge Michael Davis put off handing down a sentence.

The reason: He wants her lawyers and prosecutors to provide legal briefs explaining whether they think the conviction and sentence will result in her deportation.

Her new sentencing date is April 29.

Prosecutors are seeking a minimum sentence of two years, anything over one year could get her deported says expert:

Hussein was born in Somalia and was a year old when her parents fled the country. They spent nine years in a Kenyan refugee camp before they were allowed entry into the U.S.

After the hearing, prosecutors didn’t say what their position would be regarding deportation, and defense attorneys declined comment. Neither would comment on what her immigration status is, but court documents suggest she is a lawful permanent resident.

Ruslan Bocancea, a Minneapolis lawyer specializing in immigration law, said that because Hussein pleaded guilty to an aggravated felony involving honesty — in which prosecutors are seeking a sentence of at least two years — the woman could be deported.

“When there’s an element of fraud involved, like lying, Immigration is not forgiving at all,” Bocancea said, referring to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “Once your sentence is one year or higher, the government can deport you, assuming you are a permanent resident.”

One way to keep from being deported is to marry a US citizen!

A permanent resident facing deportation can ask to stay, and among the reasons they can cite is that they are married to a U.S. citizen, Bocancea said. Hussein got married this month, but neither side said whether the groom, who was in court, is a citizen.

[….]

Hussein was the 19th person, and only female, charged in “Operation Rhino,” the FBI’s investigation into al-Shabaab’s alleged recruitment of fighters from the Twin Cities, home to this country’s largest Somali population.

There is more, read it all.

For new readers, we began following the story of the Somali missing “youths” here in 2008.

Kenyan officials say Westgate slaughter planned from refugee camp

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
Dadaab, the world’s largest refugee camp. It would be pretty easy to hide out here and plan more attacks on Kenya. Some of the refugees arriving in America come from Dadaab.

Kenya is home to the largest number of Somali ‘refugees’ anywhere in the world.  Security officials are pointing a finger at refugee camps within their border as the planning area for the Somali slaughter of innocents at Nairobi’s upscale Westgate mall last month.

Readers may remember that we reported last December that Kenya told the UNHCR to get out and take their Somalis with them.  This article mentions that and reports that a Kenyan high court stopped the plan which initially only said that illegal Somalis in Kenya needed to get back to the camps (some are living freely throughout Kenya).

From AP at Kentucky.com (hat tip: Robin)

NAIROBI, Kenya — Some refugees fleeing insecurity from neighboring countries have abused Kenyan hospitality by planning terror attacks against the country, Kenya’s internal security minister said Friday, in an apparent reference to last month’s terrorist attack on an upscale mall which killed more than 67 people.

Joseph Ole Lenku said Kenya’s government started repatriating Somali refugees as part of remedial steps to prevent repeat attacks. Refugees from war-ravaged Somalia make up the most of the 600,000 refugees in Kenya, he said.

“We have welcomed with open arms refugees fleeing from insecurity from neighboring countries but as it turned out some of these refugees have abused our hospitality and kindness to plan and launch terror attacks from the safety of refugee camps. This cannot and shall not be allowed to continue anymore,” he said.

Westgate attack planned from refugee camp:

Last week, Asman Kamama, the chairman of parliament’s Administration and National Security committee, said that it was confirmed that the Westgate Mall attack was planned from a refugee camp in Kenya. He spoke after a meeting with Kenyan security chiefs.

This is edict from December after Somali crime and violence throughout Kenya was escalating (it was subsequently over-turned by a Kenyan court):

A government statement said that due to that “unbearable and uncontrollable threat to national security,” the government decided that all refugees and asylum seekers from Somalia must return to the large refugee camp complex known as Dadaab, a seemingly endless expanse of refugee housing on the sands of Kenya close to the Somali border. More than 400,000 refugees live in Dadaab, the largest refugee camp in the world.

We wrote about Dadaab earlier this month, here.

Just a reminder, the US resettled 7,608 Somalis to the US in FY2013.

Evidence is piling up that one of Westgate killers was Somali refugee from Norway

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We’ve been patiently waiting to learn if any of America’s contributions to al-Shabaab (aka al-Shabab) have been identified as among those responsible for the Kenyan mall massacre nearly a month ago.

One of the Westgate Somali killers caught on surveillance camera looking for his next victim.

Here is the latest report on the Norwegian citizen/Somali refugee believed to have been involved.  From the BBC (hat tip: Ed). Emphasis is mine:

The man being investigated by Norwegian police over the attack on Kenya’s Westgate shopping centre is Hassan Abdi Dhuhulow, BBC Newsnight has learned.

The 23-year-old Norwegian citizen of Somali origin is suspected of helping to plan and carry out the attack.

BBC Newsnight has spoken to a relative of his in Norway who said he left the town of Larvik for Somalia in 2009.

At least 67 people died in the attack in Nairobi, which the al-Qaeda linked group al-Shabab says it carried out.

Last week Norway’s intelligence agency, the PST, said it had sent officers to Kenya to verify reports that a Norwegian citizen had been involved in the assault on the shopping centre, which began on Saturday 21 September and lasted four days.

He grew up in Norway!

Dhuhulow was born in Somalia, but he and his family moved to Norway as refugees in 1999.

There is a lot of mumbo-jumbo in the story along the lines of disenfranchised youths (dumb and naive), but nothing in the text about the Islamic Jihad imperative that is really driving crime of this horrific nature worldwide.  However, watch the BBC film and note that a neighbor says he was talking about the Koran all the time.

And, I’ve been wondering what the heck is taking so long to ID any bodies that might have been the attackers.  The BBC tells us this:

Forensic investigators are still combing through the rubble of Westgate – no bodies have yet been identified and it is not known whether the attackers are alive or dead.

Boxes of body parts sent to Kenyan morgue!

In a related story just this morning, foreign forensic teams have arrived at a Nairobi mortuary to attempt to identify the remains of what some believe are the killers.

From AP at Fox News:

NAIROBI, Kenya –  Officials in Kenya say two boxes of charred body parts have been delivered to the city morgue from Westgate Mall and that four AK-47 assault rifles were found alongside the remains. Gunmen stormed the mall on Sept. 21, killing more than 60 people.

A city morgue official told The Associated Press that the two boxes arrived Thursday, and that a team of foreigners padlocked the boxes Friday.

Amazingly, several of these reports are now referring to only 4 men having pulled off this slaughter.  Surely these four were not the brains of the operation.

Just wondering if they let Anders Breivik in on this latest news?

In wake of mall slaughter, Kenya threatens to close Somali refugee camp

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Kenya is home to one of the largest refugee camps in the world!

But, the Somalis living there may not be so “welcome” in the wake of al-Shabaab’s attack on Nairobi’s Westgate Mall which resulted in scores of deaths of innocent shoppers and suggestions are being made to send the Somalis housed there back to Somalia.

Of course the human rights industrial complex is already screeching about any such suggestion.

From the Charleston Chronicle (hat tip: Joanne):

(GIN) Kenyan parliamentarians are threatening to close Dadaab, the world’s largest refugee camp, which is home to about half a million Somalis forced to flee to Kenya because of a war at home with insurgents under the Islamist Al-Shabab.

The closure threats follow the siege and massacre at a Nairobi shopping mall by the Somali Islamists who took their war against a western-backed government in the Somali capital of Mogadishu into Kenya. Foreign fighters including Kenyans and Ethiopians have been defending the Somali government since 2011 although the “government” controls only a very small part of the country.

Taking responsibility for the attack, Al-Shabab Islamists said it was in retaliation for Kenya’s military involvement in Somalia.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta responded: “If their desire is for Kenya to pull out from Somalia, my friends all they need to do is what they should have done 20 years ago, which is to put their house in order and Kenya will come back to Kenya.”

A “breeding ground for terrorists” (and a source of refugees for the US):

Over the weekend, a Kenyan official suggested that the Dadaab refugees were the obstacle to peace. The refugee camp, located in northern Kenya, was a “breeding ground for terrorists”, he alleged.

But the prospect of closing the camp has alarmed Human Rights Watch who warn it would inflame further instability in Somalia.

Speaking of the Kenyan killers, has anyone seen an OFFICIAL report yet on whether American Somalis were among the Islamic terrorists?