Tag: al-Shabaab

Convicted Somali terror-funder competent; withdraws appeal of 20-year sentence

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
Mahamud Said Omar convicted Jihad financier

Below is the short news piece on Mahamud Said Omar who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for his role in funding the travel (and weapons) for some of the ‘missing Somali youths’ (refugees) who thumbed their noses at what America had given them and traveled to their homeland to learn the Jihad trade.  We have dozens and dozens of posts on the investigation that began in 2008, click here for more background.

Omar was reportedly living “penniless” in Rochester, MN where he was likely resettled by Catholic Charities.  When the FBI began its investigation he took off for the Netherlands and sought asylum there.  He was subsequently returned to the US to stand trial.

By the way, Omar is the guy who said he was seeing ghosts during his trial and at one point passed out in the courtroom.

Here is AP with the latest (Somalis keeping those Minnesota courts busy!):

MINNEAPOLIS — A man sentenced to 20 years in prison for his role in a pipeline that funneled young men from Minnesota to a terrorist group in Somalia is being allowed to withdraw his appeal.

Forty-seven-year-old Mahamud Said Omar was sentenced in May on five terror-related counts. Authorities say he played a key role in pushing young men toward al-Shabab. Omar’s attorneys insist he was a passive participant and filed notice they’d appeal his conviction and sentence.

But Omar said he didn’t want to.

He was evaluated and found to be competent.

On Tuesday, Omar told Chief U.S. District Judge Michael Davis that he still wanted to withdraw his appeal. Davis granted that request, saying Omar made his decision “knowingly and voluntarily, and with a rational and factual understanding of these proceedings.”

Photo is from this story where Omar is described as a “frightened little man.”

Minnesota Somali woman found guilty in Somali jihad recruitment case

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She lied when asked if she or others helped raise the money that sent at least 22 Somali refugees back to Africa to fight with al-Shabaab in 2007-2008.

Here is one more in a long line of reports on the story we followed from the beginning (here is one of our initial posts).

The remains of Shirwa Ahmed were flown “home” to Minnesota by the FBI for a proper burial after he detonated a bomb strapped to his body and killed 29 innocent people in Somalia in 2008.

From AP at the St. Cloud Times:

MINNEAPOLIS — A 23-year-old woman admitted Thursday that she lied to a grand jury investigating the long-running case of young men who left Minnesota to join a terrorist group in Somalia.

Saynab Hussein pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Minnesota to one count of perjury. She admitted that in June 2009 she lied when she told a grand jury she did not know anyone who raised money for the travelers, when she actually helped raise money herself.

Hussein, who is pregnant and studying nursing at college, faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison. A sentencing date has not been set.

Hussein was charged on Wednesday, making her the 21st person to be charged in the government’s investigation into efforts to recruit fighters and raise money for al-Shabab, an al-Qaida-linked group at the heart of much of the violence in Somalia in recent years.

Since late 2007, at least 22 young men have left Minnesota to join the terrorist group, which at the time was fighting Ethiopians who were assisting Somalia’s former government.

Some of these Minnesota men have died, some remain at large, and others were among those prosecuted in what the FBI has said is one of the largest efforts to recruit U.S. fighters to a foreign terrorist organization.

The investigation began in the fall of 2008. That October, Shirwa Ahmed of Minneapolis detonated a suicide bomb in Somalia. Authorities said he was the first known U.S. citizen to carry out a suicide bombing, and they believed he was radicalized in Minnesota.

The following month, the case became public when families of some of the travelers came forward to say their sons were missing.

Her lawyer said lying was “out of character” for her.  She was just young and naive.  She could get five years, but in my mind she should have been charged with being an accessory to murder.

If you type ‘Somali missing youths’ into our search function, I bet we have 50-100 posts on the subject.  In 2009, we attended a disappointing  Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing on the Somali former refugees (aka Jihadists).

Islamic terror recruitment in Minneapolis not over yet?

~ 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:

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.

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.

Somalis channel Obama mentor Reverend Jeremiah Wright

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update:  Thousands of members of the English Defense League took to the streets of Newcastle today to protest Muslim immigration and the murder of Lee Rigby, watch it here.

“Your chickens are coming home to roost!” say Somali al-Shabaabers about London slaughter.  This is Islam, dummies!

Wright gave his ‘America’s chickens are coming home to roost’ sermon in the aftermath of 9/11

From the UK Telegraph:

Al Shabaab, which is thought to have links with one of the suspected Woolwich terrorists, launched a tirade on Twitter accusing Britain of carrying out countless abuses against innocent Muslims.

In one message posted on its official Twitter account, an al-Shabaab spokesman described the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby as the “death of the wretched Kafir” and said it was “insignificant compared to the deaths of hundreds of innocent Muslims at the hands of British soldiers”.  [Kafirs are you, the unbelievers, all of you! Not just soldiers! Leftwingers too!—ed]

Referring to the Boston bombing, another posting warned: “Where next? You just have to grin and bear it, it’s inevitable. A case of the chickens coming home to roost.”

Speculation was mounting that the postings, peppered with English phrases, were being written by a Briton.

Al-Shabaab: No betrayal of Islam, this is Islam!

Seizing on comments by David Cameron that the attack was a “betrayal of Islam”, al-Shabaab said that in fact it was a “portrayal of Islam”.

Update!  Great Mark Steyn piece on the subject of the Brits becoming the chickens themselves, here, and going to slaughter.  Steyn wraps-up with this:

One in ten Britons under 25 is now Muslim. That number will increase, through immigration, disparate birth rates, and conversions like those of the Woolwich killers, British-born and -bred. Metternich liked to say the Balkans began in the Landstrasse, in southeast Vienna. Today, the Dar al-Islam begins in Wellington Street, in southeast London. That’s a “betrayal” all right, but not of Islam.

Terror funding trial beginning for San Diego Somalis

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

No sooner do I tell you about the touchy-feely politically correct novel about Somalis in Maine, then I see the news that yet another terrorist funding trial is opening in San Diego.  Four men, including a mosque leader, are charged with sending money to the Al-Qaeda franchise in the Horn of Africa—-al Shabaab.

Just last month, here, we learned that a San Diego Somali woman got 8 years in the slammer for the same thing.  Taxpayers get to pay for their resettlement and then their prison terms.

Coincidentally, I  learned tonight that lucky San Diego was the first US resettlement city for Somalis in the early 1990’s.  (I’ll tell you about that tomorrow).

Somalis are busy standing trial—we reported on the Somali Christmas tree bomber case here a few days ago!

This is the latest news, emphasis mine, from UT San Diego.  (hat tip: Shariah Finance Watch)

SAN DIEGO — The San Diego trial of four Somali men charged with sending money and support to the terrorist group al-Shabaab is scheduled to begin in federal court this month.

A federal grand jury indicted the men in 2010 on charges of conspiracy, providing material support to terrorists, providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization and money laundering.

They have all pleaded not guilty. The men are accused of funneling about $8,000 raised in San Diego’s Somali immigrant community to al-Shabaab fighters in 2008.

At a hearing last week before U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Miller on pretrial motions, the four defendants sat quietly in the jury box. A group of supporters filled the seats in the courtroom’s gallery — men sitting on one side and women on the other.

The defendants are Basaaly Saeed Moalin, a cabdriver; Mohamed Mohamed Mohamud, the imam of a City Heights mosque; Issa Doreh, former president of a nonprofit group aiding the Somali community; and Ahmed Nasir Taalil Mohamud of Anaheim.

Who are these lawyers?  Inquiring minds would like to know!

Interest in the case is high within the immigrant community in San Diego and nationally. The men are being represented by lawyers from around the country who were recruited by a legal foundation that since 2001 has raised money to represent Muslims accused of crimes in federal and state courts.

There is more, read it all.  And, this is funny, lawyers for the defendants want to keep mention of al-Qaeda out of the trial so as not to remind jurors that violence and death are associated with Jihadists.

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.  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.