Tag: Somali Christmas tree bomber

Oregon: Somali refugee Christmas tree bomber wants new trial

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

But even more interesting news is linked here about the fact that Somalis and other African refugees are not doing well in Oregon (are they doing well anywhere?).

From AP:

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Defense attorneys will argue Wednesday morning that a Portland, Oregon, man convicted of terrorism charges should be acquitted or granted a new trial.

Oral arguments will focus on the government’s use of evidence and its reliance on surveillance obtained through extrajudicial means.

The attorneys for Mohamed Mohamud (pictured in a mugshot at left) say prosecutors failed to notify them of information derived under the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act until Mohamud had already been convicted.

That failure, they say, withheld important information from the defense team and violated Mohamud’s constitutional rights.

Prosecutors responded in pre-hearing briefs that they didn’t disclose any new information when they informed Mohamud’s defense team of the surveillance in November.

Somali Community of Oregon

That story links us to an older article about the formation of the Somali American Council of Oregon which was started to “bring the Somali community together.”   In refugee industry lingo the Somali Community of Oregon is an ECBO (Ethnic Community Based Organization) which is eligible to receive your tax dollars to act as a “community organizing” and advocacy group (you know like what Obama did before he started running for elective office, that kind of organizing).

ECBOs stand up for their ethnic people and make sure their people get signed up for whatever they are entitled to.  Usually they register their people to vote as well. And, if their  people get in trouble with the law they go to bat for them (like the Christmas tree bomber).

See our category on ECBOs here.

Now check out this story from 2013 about the rough time the 10,000 plus Somalis of Oregon are having.  Weren’t we told that refugees are self-sufficient at high rates and that we weren’t importing poverty?

Recently we reported that 63% of Somalis in Minnesota live in poverty, and in Oregon it appears to be about the same rate!

The surveillance, arrest and conviction of Mohamed Osman Mohamud for domestic terrorism has created a watershed moment for Oregon’s Somalis. Before the case, the community was scattered, made up of many small groups, each with different regional, tribal and religious traditions.

Now the community, estimated at 10,000 people, is coming together through the Somali American Council of Oregon.

“We want to bring everyone together to build trust and faith in one another,” says Mussé Olol, (pictured) chair of the council.

[…..]

Right now, many Somali-born parents fear their children cannot thrive in America. Their challenges include the unique problems that come with being refugees from a war zone targeted by Islamic extremists. But they also face more familiar barriers of unemployment, poverty, racism, school failure and the school to prison pipeline.

[…..]

In 2010, the Coalition of Communities of Color and Portland State University released a report noting that more than half, 56 percent, of Multnomah County’s African immigrant and refugee children live in poverty.

According to Ann Curry Stevens, the Portland State researcher who authored the report, “That number has deteriorated and today two-thirds, 67 percent, of African children live in poverty.”

Read the whole story at The Skanner, it is very informative.

Mohamed Mohamud found guilty in Christmas tree bombing plot

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Boy was that a fast trial.

No magical melting pot for this Mohamed.

The former refugee who thumbed his nose at the good life that federal refugee contractors (and your tax dollars) gave him and his family, could possibly spend a life behind bars when he is sentenced in May.  And, remember the young Jihadist was raised here, he is not a recent arrival who was radicalized in the Horn of Africa.  He became radicalized in Portland, Oregon!

From the BBC (hat tip: Jim):

A Somali-American man has been found guilty of trying to bomb a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in the state of Oregon.

Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 21, was given a fake bomb by undercover agents posing as Islamist militants, lawyers said.

Mohamud was arrested after he tried to use his phone to detonate the fake car bomb near a crowded square in Portland.

He will be sentenced on 14 May and may face a life sentence for attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction.

[…..]

He is reported to have told a friend on the day of the attempted bombing that it was “the greatest morning of my life”.

The FBI said Mohamud made a “series of choices over a period of several years – choices that were leading him down a path that would have ended in violence.

“His actions showed little regard for the rights and responsibilities that come with being an American or respect for the lives that he was prepared to take.”

We have made extensive reference to the ‘Christmas Tree bomber’ over the last few years here.

Somalis are busy, busy, busy.  Just yesterday we reported on the terror-funding trial involving Somali refugees in San Diego, here.

WaPo reported on Somali refugee Christmas tree bomber

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The article published last Friday is a very interesting one because the Associated Press reporter has really played up the dual personality angle about the would-be bomber Mohamed Osman Mohamud.     For me, there isn’t much of a mystery—permission is granted by the Islamic “faith” to use deception and lying for Allah.  It is as much a part of the “religion” as is praying five times a day.   And, is indeed a partial explanation why most Americans cannot see the goals of the Islamists among them.

It is hard to wrap our minds around the concept of Taqiyya*.  Our Judeo-Christian heritage teaches us that lying is sinful, not so for Muslim Jihadists.

Here is the  AP at the Washington Post on the Christmas tree bombing trial going on in Portland:

PORTLAND, Ore. — At some point just before 5:40 p.m. on Nov. 26, 2010, the illusion that Mohamed Osman Mohamud created was still intact.

He was still, according to prosecutors, an Islamic soldier in a war against the West, ready to kill and maim thousands at a busy Christmas tree-lighting ceremony. He was still, according to friends, a shy, suburban 19-year-old who had written and read a Kwanzaa poem about religious unity with two Christian college students three days before his arrest.

These conflicting lives were juggled, managed, even perfected.

Then, at 5:40 p.m., Mohamud pressed a button on a cellphone he thought would set off a bomb and FBI agents descended, tossing him in a police car while he shouted “Allahu Akhbar.” God is great.

Go to the WaPo if you want to read about all of the witnesses for the defense who describe Mohamud as a happy go-lucky college student.

Mohamud’s double-life revealed by prosecutors:

Just months earlier, prosecutors say he had authored an article in an English-language magazine called “Jihad Recollections” under the pen name Ibn al-Mubarak, advocating physical fitness for the mujahideen in places where they couldn’t find exercise equipment. He would go on to write three more stories for the publication, his work appearing alongside contributions from Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida higher-ups.

And, then the end:

In the seconds before 5:40 p.m. on Nov. 26, the illusion of Mohamud’s dual lives was still intact.

At Portland’s Union Station, he pressed a button on a cellphone he thought would detonate a bomb. Sixteen blocks away, a cavalcade of city leadership was congratulating itself on another year at Portland’s Christmas tree lighting.

Nothing happened. Mohamud pressed the button again. Agents from the FBI took him into a waiting car as he kicked at them and shouted.  [shouted Allahu Akhbar!–ed]

Surprise! A refugee who didn’t assimilate!

Mohamed Osman Mohamud is from a refugee family, he must have been at most a young child when he came to the US.  He was given a privileged upbringing.  He was not poor and destitute, he didn’t need a job(!), yet he wanted to kill thousands of American men, women and CHILDREN for Allah.  Here is the New York Times said about the “confused” young man in 2010:

Mr. Mohamud, his younger sister and their parents had long lived in the Portland area, including in Beaverton, a suburb that has a small Somali population.

Mr. Mohamud’s family fled Somalia in the early 1990s, and his father, Osman Barre, a well-educated engineer, worked to establish them in Oregon.

“Osman was very sophisticated,” said Chris Oace, a former refugee worker for Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon who helped the family resettle here in the early 1990s. “Some refugees are afraid of having Christian churches help them. But it wasn’t an issue with his family at all.”

So much for that melting pot mumbo jumbo we hear so much about from the naive defenders of bringing in third world Muslims and dropping them off in your town.

For new readers:  All of our references to the ‘Christmas tree bomber’ are here.

* See Taqiyya’ s use in rules of war discussion here:

Taqiyya offers two basic uses. The better known revolves around dissembling over one’s religious identity when in fear of persecution. Such has been the historical usage of taqiyya among Shi’i communities whenever and wherever their Sunni rivals have outnumbered and thus threatened them. Conversely, Sunni Muslims, far from suffering persecution have, whenever capability allowed, waged jihad against the realm of unbelief; and it is here that they have deployed taqiyya—not as dissimulation but as active deceit. In fact, deceit, which is doctrinally grounded in Islam, is often depicted as being equal—sometimes superior—to other universal military virtues, such as courage, fortitude, or self-sacrifice.