Kenya may be one of the only countries in Africa which has a will for self-preservation and so they have begun to clean-up some hotbeds of anti-Kenyan activity, especially neighborhoods associated with the Westgate Mall slaughterby a band of Somali al-Shabaab terrorists*** last September.
Community organizer, Jibril Afyare (center?), led 100 picketers in St. Paul condemning Kenya.
However, the Minnesota Somali “community” apparently doesn’t think Kenya has the right to save itself and agitators there, including newly elected city council member Abdi Warsame, are calling on the US government to step in. They say they want “justice.”
After members of the Twin Cities’ Somali-American community said their afternoon prayers Friday, they gathered at the state Capitol to express solidarity and demand justice for relatives in Kenya.
Reports from human rights groups, news stories and communications with relatives describe abuses against Somalis in Eastleigh, a suburb of the Kenyan capital of Nairobi that is known for its large Somali population.
As part of an ongoing counter-terrorism crackdown, Kenyan security forces launched house-to-house searches in Eastleigh last Monday.
US government should intervene in Kenyan affairs says community organizer.
Nearly 100 picketers joined the Friday demonstration in St. Paul, condemning actions by Kenyan government and demanding the release of those detained.
Jibril Afyare, an activist who organized the demonstration, said the event was meant to raise awareness and ask the U.S. government to intervene and stand with Somalis in Kenya.
Warsame: Somalis in prison everywhere!
Minneapolis City Council member Abdi Warsame, Somali-born with personal ties to Somalis in Kenya, was among the elected officials who attended Friday’s Capitol gathering.
Addressing the crowd in Somali, Warsame said: “Somalis everywhere are in prisons. We’re in prison in Hennepin County. We’re in prison in Nairobi. We’re in prison in Mogadishu.”
LOL! Maybe there is a reason for that!
As I said the other day, why don’t young, strong, educated Somalis like Afyare and Warsame go back to Somalia and save their country from further ruin instead of flapping their gums from the safety of Minnesota. I think I know why—it is not about Somalia. They are more interested in Al-Hijra—the Islamic doctrine of immigration—for both Kenya and America.
*** Remember readers that there are Somalis in prison in the US for sending financial support to al-Shabaab.
Wedenesday, Nov. 3, 2010. Mohamed Mohamed Mohamud and Issa Doreh are accused of supplying funds to a terrorist group. Drawing courtesy of Krentz Johnson.
Including an Imam from a local Somali mosque.
This is the culmination of the story we’ve followed since 2010.
When I search RRW for ‘San Diego Somali terrorists’ I get pages of posts, so here is an idea, maybe now that ABC News has re-discovered investigative journalism (see Iraqi refugees yesterday), this might just be a new and fruitful avenue of investigation for them!
Below is most of the FBI’s press release from this past Monday (highlights are mine):
SAN DIEGO—Basaaly Saeed Moalin, a cabdriver who was convicted by a federal jury of providing material support to the terrorist group al Shabaab, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey T. Miller to 18 years in prison.
Also sentenced at the same hearing were Mohamed Mohamed Mohamud, the imam at a popular mosque frequented by the city’s immigrant Somali community, to 13 years in prison; and Issa Doreh, who worked at a money transmitting business that was the conduit for moving the illicit funds, to 10 years in prison.
In sentencing Moalin, Judge Miller acknowledged the defendant’s considerable support from the Somali community, his childhood scars from violence in war-torn Somalia, and his philanthropy as a naturalized American. However, he noted Moalin’s virtuous behavior “is substantially offset” by his collaboration with al Shabaab and one of its most prominent leaders—Aden Hashi Ayrow.
Judge Miller said he imposed part of the sentence consecutively—making it three years longer—because Moalin went beyond financial assistance and provided a house to Ayrow. Judge Miller described that action as “an offense of a different magnitude,” noting that Moalin personally offered the home in Mogadishu to advance the agenda of al Shabaab and to help hide weapons. “This count went beyond financial support and entered into another realm,” Judge Miller said.
At trial, the United States played for the jury a recorded telephone conversation in which Moalin gave the terrorists in Somalia permission to use his house, telling Ayrow that “after you bury your stuff deep in the ground, you would, then, plant trees on top.” Prosecutors argued at trial that Moalin was offering a place to hide weapons.
“These men willfully sent money to a terrorist organization, knowing al Shabaab’s extremely violent methods and knowing the U.S. had designated it as a foreign terrorist organization,” said U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy. “Months of intercepted phone conversations included discussion of suicide bombing, assassinations, and jihad. We are satisfied that because of this investigation and prosecution, we have furthered our mission to safeguard national security by blocking financial support to this dangerous group.”
FBI Special Agent in Charge, Daphne Hearn, stated, “I want to commend the work of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, who worked countless hours to successfully investigate and prosecute this case. As demonstrated in this case, the multi-agency partnerships which make up the JTTF continue to play a critical role in the day-to-day protection of our communities and our national security.”
“Today’s sentencing underscores HSI’s commitment to aggressively investigate those who engage in or attempt to support the financing of foreign terrorist organizations,” said Nick Annan, acting Special Agent in Charge for ICE HSI in San Diego. “I commend all of our partners on the San Diego Joint Terrorism Task Force for their exhaustive efforts to dismantle the plot that aimed to provide support to terrorists who wish to harm us.”
Moalin and his co-conspirators were found guilty during a three-week trial in February. The United States presented evidence that Moalin, Mohamud, Doreh, and a fourth defendant, Ahmed Nasiri Taalil Mohamud, conspired to provide money to al Shabaab, a violent and brutal militia group that engages in suicide bombings, targets civilians for assassination, and uses improvised explosive devices. In February 2008, the U.S. Department of State formally designated al Shabaab as a foreign terrorist organization.
At trial, the jury listened to dozens of the defendants’ intercepted telephone conversations, including many between Moalin and Ayrow. In those calls, Ayrow implored Moalin to send money to al Shabaab, telling Moalin that it was “time to finance the jihad.”
Ayrow told Moalin, “You are running late with the stuff. Send some and something will happen.” Ayrow was subsequently killed in a missile strike on May 1, 2008.
According to evidence at trial, the defendants conspired to transfer the funds from San Diego to Somalia through the Shidaal Express***, a now-defunct money transmitting business in San Diego.
*** We wrote about funny-money business at the Shidaal Express here as early as 2009. These Somali money transfer businesses are spread throughout America.
For more on how we came to have so many Somali refugees, see this 2008 post.
One final thought and I should have said it yesterday in the post about Iraqi terrorists in the US: long term the greatest threat to our way of life is not the isolated Islamic terrorist sneaking in, but the cultural and societal changes that a growing population of Muslims will bring to America which we often refer to as the quiet Jihad.
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.
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?
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 Mallwhich 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.
(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?
