Al-Shabaab goes international with deadly mall attack in Kenya

09/22/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update September 23rd: There is so much coverage of this story I can’t keep up, but here is one from CNN about the fact that refugees living in the US were recruited for Jihad in Africa—this story is FIVE YEARS OLD! What takes the media so long to catch up?

Update: ABC is reporting that the attacks could have ramifications in the US since so many Somalis left the US to join the Jihadists over the last few years, but they cannot bring themselves to use the “r” word (refugee!) leaving the average readers scratching their heads and wondering how all these Somalis got to the US in the first place.

Update: See photo at Vlad Tepes here (warning! it is heartbreaking). If the link isn’t opening try Vlad’s home page (here).

Update: There is a report at PJ Media (thanks to all who sent this news) that some of the Somali terrorists are Americans—that would almost have to mean they are also “refugees” (or the children of refugees) resettled in Minnesota, or possibly another of the “preferred” locations for Somali resettlement.

And, I bet most Americans think this is ‘over there’ and has nothing to do with the US. Wrong! We have had (and may still have) the Somali terrorist group al-Shabaab in Minnesota and possibly other “welcoming” cities where Somali “refugees” have been resettled.

We began following al-Shabaab (sometimes spelled al-Shabab) since its US Jihadi recruitment activities became known in 2008, here. For ambitious readers, the key words ‘missing Somali youths’ are found in our one-hundred-plus-post archive on the recruitment of mostly young men we raised and educated on the taxpayers’ dime. (I’ll bet there is no one place, other than RRW, for a complete history of the recruitment.)

Photo is from the Investigative Project on Terrorism

Al-Shabaab in 2009: “Beware we are coming!”

Here is a post I wrote in January 2009 where I reported that al-Shabaab spokesmen were caught on tape saying they want to re-establish the Islamic caliphate and eventually control the world. Why is it that we don’t take them at their word?

“Islamic rule from Alaska and Chile to South Africa, and from Japan to Russia. Beware, we are coming.”

[…..]

“Our objectives, by the grace of God, are to see the return of the Islamic Caliphate, the last of which was the Ottoman empire that collapsed in the 1920s. We want to bring that system back and govern the world with God’s law.

In March of 2009, I attended a shameful (even more shameful in retrospect then I viewed it at the time) hearing in the Senate Homeland Security Committee where Senators Lieberman and Collins visibly gave a sigh of relief to hear from US GOVERNMENT TERROR EXPERTS that al-Shabaab was all about defending their homeland from Ethiopian “invaders.”

The Senators were looking for a link to al-Qaeda, and if there wasn’t one they were happy. They didn’t get it then, and most people don’t get it now—Islamists do not have to be formally linked to have the same ideological goals! Of course, subsequently the link to al-Qaeda was definitively determined.

Kenyan mall slaughter

Update: Israeli forces rescuing hostages according to this report. Hat tip: Janet.

Yesterday, al-Shabaab, which most “experts” thought was on the run as the new Somalia government gained strength, has flexed its muscle outside of Somalia to show the world they aren’t done yet. An attack on Obama’s ancestral home is a signal to the world that they are still relevant, and that Obama has not made any peace with the Muslim world.

As of this writing, Sunday morning, CNN is reporting that 59 innocent Saturday shoppers were killed, 175 wounded and the Somali Islamic terrorists still hold 30 hostages in the most deadly attack in Kenya since the US embassy bombing in 1998.

[And, btw where is Drudge? When I started checking out the breaking news yesterday, I began with Drudge, as I usually do, and as of this minute, I’m not even seeing the terror attack mentioned there!]

Frankly I’m sick of these Somali Islamists and the issue of al-Shabaab recruiters operating in the US. Really! I’m sick of our naive view of Somalis and the goals of Islamists.

So please read our friend Jerry Gordon’s account of what happened. He isn’t tired of making the connection between the goals of Islam and refugees. And, folks, it isn’t just that you should fear your next mall shopping trip, the more important Jihad on-going now is the demographic Jihad (read al Hijra—the Islamic doctrine of Jihad by immigration)!

And, have a look at CNN explaining al-Shabaab to their readers. At least some mainstream outlet is doing it—5 years late—but better late then never (what a joke!).

How many Somalis have been resettled in the US?

More than 100,000 now and those are just the ones who came in through the State Department’s Refugee Program with the help of nine federal contractors***. See our now outdated post here.

But, if you are thinking we have maybe slowed the flow of new Somali refugees, forget it! Fiscal year 2013 ends in eight days.

As of August 31st we have resettled 6,679 additional Somalis this year alone! Go here.

Photo is from this 2010 story at The Investigative Project on Terrorism.

*** I often wonder if one day these “church” leaders will place their heads in their hands and ask themselves—‘God what have I done?’

Addendum: I should have linked this 2011 post (it is being heavily hit today) on why there are so many Somalis in Minnesota—thank Catholic Charities, World Relief and Lutheran Social Service and their sugar-daddy—-The US State Department.

Minnesota Somali woman found guilty in Somali jihad recruitment case

08/30/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

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).

Swedish Leftist in Somalia escapes kidnapping attempt; is wounded

08/25/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Others in her party were killed.

Ann-Margarethe Livh and Abdirahim Hassan members of the Swedish Left Party. Livh was injured and flown out of the country, Hassan reportedly died in the attack.

I don’t know how I missed this story from late last week. Longtime readers know that we have a keen interest in Sweden and its socialist experiment with large, and ever-growing numbers of needy refugees and asylum seekers allowed into the country.

Only a few months ago, this post about ‘Swedes fighting back‘ after Muslim immigrant youth riots (some of the youths were Somalis) is our top post of all time (with just short of 11,000 visitors). Go here for our whole archive on Sweden.

From DefenceWeb:

Somali gunmen tried to kidnap a Swedish opposition politician in an ambush in which she and another woman were wounded and two men were killed, police said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility. However, al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab militants have kept up guerrilla-style attacks and kidnappings in the city despite being largely pushed out by Somali and African forces two years ago.

Witnesses said Ann-Margarethe Livh, an opposition Left Party city councilor in Stockholm, was returning to her hotel after giving a speech at the University of Somalia when the gunmen struck near the Turkish embassy, Reuters reports.

Student Ahmed Dek said she flung open the rear door of the car and ran under a hail of bullets towards the university. She was bleeding badly from her left side, he said.

Police said an officer guarding her and a man said to be her translator were killed. A Somali woman from Sweden was also wounded, they said.

[….]

Livh is the most prominent Left Party politician in Stockholm. A party spokeswoman told Sweden’s TT news agency the group was in Mogadishu “in connection with an international project within the work of the Left Party”.

Here is another report on the terrorist attack which identifies one of the dead men as also a member of the Left Party. According to Wikipedia the Swedish Left Party is a socialist and feminist party.

Local journalist Hamza Mohamed told The Local on the phone from Mogadishu that Livh was injured near the University of Somalia, where staff confirmed she had given a guest lecture.

“She was leaving the premises and was fifteen steps outside the university compound when men in a tinted (window) car opened fire,” he said.

Local Stockholm newspaper Norra Sidan also reported on Wednesday that Abdirahim Hassan had died in Somalia. His family confirmed the death. Hassan was a member of Sweden’s Left Party, which referred all questions to the foreign ministry when contacted by The Local.

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:

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.

Somali government to Holland and Sweden: don’t send those troublemakers back here

07/31/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

According to the Somaliland Sun, the new government of Somalia recently turned back an airplane carrying Somali youths being deported from the Netherlands and Sweden (were some of them the Somalis who terrorized Sweden back in May?).

I looked around a bit for another source on this news and didn’t find it. In February the Dutch Government was thwarted in an attempt to send back a few criminal types, so I’m not sure there was a recent plane carrying Somali deportees from two countries (it strikes me as strange that the two countries coordinated such a flight).

Nevertheless, this is being reported at Somali websites (emphasis is mine):

Somalilandsun – An airplane carrying Somalis deported from Holland and Sweden has recently been turned back from Mogadishu airport

The Somali nationality and Immigration directorate have recently returned back an airplane carrying Somali youth deportees from Holland and Sweden , according to local Somali websites .

General Abdillahi Gaafo who is the director of Immigration said that ” it is illegal to send youth back to the country without any notification to the Somali government and without indicating the reasons behind their deportation” . Any forced return of Somalis by these countries should be prior to talks between these countries and Somalia and with prior agreement by the Somali government on the return of deportees to the country, the general concluded .

Holland has earlier been condemned for sending Somalis back to the war-torn country and the EU high courts have prevented many Somalis from being forcefully deported to Somalia by the Dutch government .

So, if it’s true, then the Dutch and Swedish governments need to try notifying first and see what happens.

Readers, think about this. All over the world, Africans are leaving Africa and Middle Easterners are trying to get out of their hellholes. How is this ever going to stop in the decades to come? Sad to say, but in my view, the invasion of the West is only going to get worse.