Terrorism probe casts scrutiny on Minneapolis' Somali immigrant enclave
Little Mogadishu residents talk of a lack of identity and a life of poverty and racism. And they disagree over their former neighbors who are accused of plotting jihad in Somalia.
By Bob Drogin
November 25, 2009
Reporting from Minneapolis - Barely a block from the Mississippi River sits a neighborhood Mark Twain could not have imagined.
Men with henna-streaked beards and women in full-body hijabs streamed Tuesday past the Maashaa Allah Restaurant, the Alle Aamin Coffee Shop, the Kaah Express Money Wiring stall, the storefront Al-Qaaniteen Mosque and other similar structures.
"When I came here as a refugee in 1995, there were just a few hundred Somalis, and we were very alone," said Adar Kahin, 48, who was a famous singer back home and now volunteers at a local community center.
"Now everyone is here," she said cheerfully. "It's like being back in Mogadishu. That's what we call it, Little Mogadishu."
This corner of Minneapolis -- the de facto capital of the Somali diaspora in America -- presents many faces: hope and renewal, despair and fear.
But more than anything, particularly for the young, it is a place of transition and searching for identity.
"Keeping an identity in this situation is really hard," said Saeed Fahia, who arrived in 1997 and now heads a confederation of Somali organizations. "In Somali culture, all tradition is taught when you are 9 years old, and you learn all about your clan and sub-clan for 25 generations. There's no mechanism to learn that here, and no context."
For the FBI, Little Mogadishu has become the center of an intense investigation into a recruiting network that sent young men to fight in Somalia for a radical Islamist group known as Shabab, or "the Youth."
Investigators say the poverty, grim gang wars and overpacked public housing towers produced one of the largest militant operations in the United States since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Federal officials announced terrorism charges Monday against eight local men, seven of whom remain at large. That brought the total to 14 Minneapolis men who have been indicted or pleaded guilty this year for allegedly indoctrinating, recruiting or training local youths to join a Muslim militia waging war in Somalia against the U.S.-backed government.
Family members say six young men from Minneapolis have died in Somalia in the last 13 months, including one who the FBI believes was a suicide bomber. About 20 local youths are believed to have taken up arms there.
Fahia speculated that those who went to Somalia "are trying to reclaim their identity. They're trying to find a mission in life. They're trying to find out where they come from, and who they are."
Those who left to fight in Somalia prompt no unified response from those who stayed.
Outside the Brian Coyle Community Center, five young men who emigrated from Somalia as toddlers huddled in black hoodies under a cold, clammy fog that turned the day dull gray. They shared smokes and spoke of those who had joined the jihad, or holy war.
"Some of them felt America is the land of the devil," said Said Ali, who is 20, rail-thin and jobless. "They were losing their culture, their language and their religion. They've got family there. They feel at home."
If he had the money, he said, he would go to Somalia too."My friend went," he said. "He's running a hotel. He carries an AK-47. He's living life good."Ali Mohamed, also 20 and unemployed, jumped in. "These guys are blowing up women and kids," he said.
"That ain't right."The difficult search for identity is an old story in this area.Minnesota long has waved a welcome mat for war refugees -- first Koreans, then Hmong, Vietnamese and Ethiopians. Minneapolis provided subsidized housing and generous benefits. The newcomers found low-wage jobs at chicken-processing factories where English was not required.
The first wave of Somalis arrived here after 1991, when the country descended into a fierce clan-based civil war that still rages. More Somalis came each year, and family members soon followed, as was mandated under U.S. law. Others moved here from other U.S. cities.
Many in the community started families, opened businesses and achieved financial stability. They wired money to relatives back home, followed Somali news in ethnic papers and websites, and in some cases invested in Somali businesses even as their children became American doctors and lawyers.
Others became mired in brutal poverty. Many of the women were illiterate, and old men who had herded goats struggled in the rugged winters. Unemployment and school dropout rates soared. So did incidents of intolerance.
"We're an obvious minority here, and have a different religion and culture," said Abdiaziz Warsame, 37, an interpreter and youth counselor who has worked with local gangs such as the Somali Hard Boys and RPG's. "So people feel a high level of racism."
A 2007 tally counted 35,000 Somalis in Minnesota, the vast majority of whom live in Little Mogadishu, the gritty Minneapolis zone between two highways and the Mississippi River.The Riverside Plaza, a public housing project, looms over the area.
The grim concrete structures house more than 4,500 people, most of them Somali, in Soviet-style apartment blocks.
Pungent spices waft through the halls, and posters advertise travel agencies that sell visits to Muslim holy shrines in Saudi Arabia. The Halal Minimart outside sells meat acceptable to Muslims, one of more than a dozen in the neighborhood.
The Brian Coyle center is the logistical heart of the community. Its food pantry serves more than 1,000 families per month, and various groups help with food stamps, legal services and other needs. The gym does double duty as a wedding hall.
But the neighborhood's cultural focus are the mosques and ubiquitous coffee shops, where people gather to discuss community news, politics in their homeland, religion or myriad other subjects.The young have other avenues, including the Internet.
Some members of the group that went to Somalia were said to be followers of Anwar al Awlaki, an American-born firebrand imam who preaches on the Internet in flawless English about the need to fight for Islam.
Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the accused killer of 13 people at Ft. Hood in Texas this month, had exchanged e-mails with Awlaki, who is based in Yemen.
Omar Jamal, director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center here, said Awlaki's fierce sermons helped inspire several of the youths who later joined Shabab in Somalia. Awlaki has praised the militia, which U.S. officials say is allied with Al Qaeda.
"They exchanged messages on his blog," Jamal said. "They prayed for him. They watched his videos. They fell under his spell of influence."
But in the flux of Little Mogadishu, not everyone hears the words of jihad as clearly as others.Outside the community center, the group of young men continued their discussion about the fighters who had gone back to Somalia.
To Noor Bosir, an 18-year-old student, the jihad seems a world away.Although he was close to Burhan Hasan, one of the youths who was killed last summer in Somalia, Bosir can't understand the alienation many young men here feel.
"All these guys who left, we looked up to," Bosir said. "When we came here to play basketball, they would go to the mosque. And somehow, they got brainwashed. And now they're dead."
Friday 27 November 2009
Somali-Americans recruited jihadists, say US prosecutors
Somali-Americans recruited jihadists, say US prosecutors
Prosecutors in Minneapolis say they have charged eight men with recruiting young Somali-Americans and sending them to Somalia to fight with an anti-government insurgency force linked to al-Qa'ida. In head-count terms, it is the largest terror cell to emerge in the US since the 9/11 attacks.
The charges stem from a long-running investigation by the FBI in Minneapolis, the largest city in the state of Minnesota, which is home to a thriving Somali-American community. Officials believe that as many as 20 men may have been sent to Somalia in this way. In 2008, a naturalised US citizen, Shirwa Ahed, blew himself up in northern Somalia. It was believed to be the first time that an American citizen had carried out a terrorist suicide bombing.
While the alleged recruitment drive appears aimed at assisting the insurgency in Somalia, officials fear that once they have received terrorist training there, many of the men may return to carry out similar attacks on American soil. "The potential implications for national security are significant," said Ralph Boelter of the FBI.
The men were allegedly being sent to fight alongside Al-Shabaab, a terror group closely allied with al-Qa'ida. "The vibrant Somali community here in Minneapolis has lost many of its sons to fighting in Somalia. These young men have been recruited to fight in a foreign war by individuals and groups using violence against government troops and civilians," said Todd Jones, the US Attorney for Minnesota.
The investigation intensified after a group of youths were stopped by traffic police in Nevada on 6 October. They said they were travelling to a wedding in San Diego. They were later tracked by customs officers entering Mexico. They had airline tickets out of the border city of Tijuana to Mexico City and they are now believed to be in Somalia.
In total, 14 men have been charged in connection with the case; some have been arrested, others are still at large. Those named in the latest criminal complaints include Cabdulaahi Ahmed Faarax and Abdiweli Yassin Isse, who are among those who made the trip last month via Mexico. They are charged with conspiracy to kill, kidnap, maim and injure individuals outside the US.
"Faarax told the co-conspirators that travelling to Somalia to fight jihad will be fun and not to be afraid," according to an FBI affidavit in the case. "Faarax also explained to his co-conspirators that they would get to shoot guns in Somalia."
By David Usborne, US Editor
Wednesday, 25 November 2009
Prosecutors in Minneapolis say they have charged eight men with recruiting young Somali-Americans and sending them to Somalia to fight with an anti-government insurgency force linked to al-Qa'ida. In head-count terms, it is the largest terror cell to emerge in the US since the 9/11 attacks.
The charges stem from a long-running investigation by the FBI in Minneapolis, the largest city in the state of Minnesota, which is home to a thriving Somali-American community. Officials believe that as many as 20 men may have been sent to Somalia in this way. In 2008, a naturalised US citizen, Shirwa Ahed, blew himself up in northern Somalia. It was believed to be the first time that an American citizen had carried out a terrorist suicide bombing.
While the alleged recruitment drive appears aimed at assisting the insurgency in Somalia, officials fear that once they have received terrorist training there, many of the men may return to carry out similar attacks on American soil. "The potential implications for national security are significant," said Ralph Boelter of the FBI.
The men were allegedly being sent to fight alongside Al-Shabaab, a terror group closely allied with al-Qa'ida. "The vibrant Somali community here in Minneapolis has lost many of its sons to fighting in Somalia. These young men have been recruited to fight in a foreign war by individuals and groups using violence against government troops and civilians," said Todd Jones, the US Attorney for Minnesota.
The investigation intensified after a group of youths were stopped by traffic police in Nevada on 6 October. They said they were travelling to a wedding in San Diego. They were later tracked by customs officers entering Mexico. They had airline tickets out of the border city of Tijuana to Mexico City and they are now believed to be in Somalia.
In total, 14 men have been charged in connection with the case; some have been arrested, others are still at large. Those named in the latest criminal complaints include Cabdulaahi Ahmed Faarax and Abdiweli Yassin Isse, who are among those who made the trip last month via Mexico. They are charged with conspiracy to kill, kidnap, maim and injure individuals outside the US.
"Faarax told the co-conspirators that travelling to Somalia to fight jihad will be fun and not to be afraid," according to an FBI affidavit in the case. "Faarax also explained to his co-conspirators that they would get to shoot guns in Somalia."
By David Usborne, US Editor
Wednesday, 25 November 2009
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross: Western terrorism recruits in Somalia
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross: Western terrorism recruits in Somalia
Posted: November 25, 2009, 8:30 AM by NP Editor
terrorism, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
On Monday, the United States unsealed terrorism charges against eight defendants for supporting a Somali Islamist group called al-Shabaab. While few lay people in Canada or the United States have heard of al-Shabaab, the al-Qaeda-connected extremist organization — which controls a significant amount of territory in Somalia — has recently become a particular concern for analysts examining possible homegrown terrorist flashpoints in North America.
Beginning in late 2007, dozens of young men of Somali descent started disappearing from diaspora communities in the West. It turned out they were returning to Somalia to train in Shabaab camps or to take up arms against Shabaab’s enemies within the country. Islamists of non-Somali descent were also travelling there to join Shabaab.
This phenomenon has been repeating itself in a number of countries. Canadian government sources claim that 20 to 30 Canadians have joined Shabaab — a development that public safety minister Peter Van Loan has said “alarmed” him. In the U.S., the disappearances have primarily clustered around Minneapolis-St. Paul, but there are credible reports of disappearances in other U.S. cities with large Somali populations as well.
The Times of London reports that British security services believe “[d]ozens of Islamic extremists have returned to Britain from terror training camps in Somalia.” SAPO, Sweden’s security service, believes that about 20 people have left that country to join Shabaab. And Australian authorities think as many as 40 Somali refugees may have gone from Australia to Somalia to liaise with Shabaab.
Many factors cause young men in the West to join Somali Islamist movements. For one, the Somali diaspora is less integrated than other immigrant communities; this can lead to disaffection and the development of a mythologized sense of homeland, leaving newcomers especially vulnerable to recruitment.
There is also a political dimension to support for Shabaab. In March 2009 U.S. Senate testimony, Professor Ken Menkhaus noted that Shabaab thrives on the “complex cocktail of nationalist, Islamist, anti-Ethiopian, anti-Western, anti-foreigner sentiments” that resulted from Ethiopia’s December 2006 invasion of Somalia.
Of course, there’s a religious aspect too. American convert Daniel Maldonado, who pleaded guilty in April 2007 to receiving training from a foreign terrorist organization, told U.S. authorities that when he decided to travel to Somalia, it was to fight jihad — something he described in religious terms as “raising the word of Allah, uppermost, by speaking and fighting against all those who are against the Islamic State.”
Shabaab recruiting is a security concern for both Somalia and the rest of the world. Within Somalia, Shabaab’s implementation of a strict version of shariah in areas it controls raises human rights worries. For example, according to Amnesty International, Shabaab jurists sentenced a 13-year-old rape victim in Kismayo to be stoned to death last year for alleged adultery.
Internationally, the problem is Shabaab’s links to global jihadist groups like al-Qaeda. One important document explaining Shabaab’s outlook, entitled A Message to the Mujaahideen in Particular and Muslims in General, and written by the American mujahid Omar Hammami (a.k.a. Abu Mansoor al-Amriki) made its way around the jihadist web in early 2008. In it, Hammami contrasted Shabaab with previous Somali Islamist movements, such as the Islamic Courts Union.
In making this distinction, Hammami put Shabaab into the same ideological category as al-Qaeda. He said that while the Islamic Courts’ objectives were limited by national boundaries, “the Shabaab had a global goal including the establishment” of an Islamic caliphate. He also wrote that Shabaab’s religious methodology was the same as that expressed by such recognizable jihadist icons as Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
In August 2008, Shabaab spokesman Sheikh Mukhtar Robow said that Shabaab was “negotiating how we can unite into one” with al-Qaeda. In the same month, Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, Shabaab’s chief military strategist (who was killed by U.S. commandos in September 2009), reached out to al-Qaeda’s senior leadership in a 24-minute video entitled March Forth.
On Nov. 19, 2008, Zawahiri responded to Nabhan’s video with one in which he called Shabaab “my brothers, the lions of Islam in Somalia.” He urged them not to lay down their weapons “before the mujahid state of Islam” has been established in Somalia.
But authorities’ biggest concern is not what people pulled into Somalia do while they’re there, but what happens when they return to the countries from which they came. There are fears that these men could end up involved in a terrorist plot — fears bolstered by the fact that Shabaab’s training is both military and ideological, with the camps fostering what Nairobi-based journalist Fredrick Nzwili described as a “fundamentalist ideology.”
A clear picture of Shabaab’s recruiting networks in the West still has not emerged, although a significant thread running through a number of cases is the presence of recruiters. This could be seen, for example, following 25-year-old Abdifatah Yusuf Isse’s guilty plea in Minnesota to providing material support to terrorists based on his travel to Somalia. Omar Jamal, director of Minneapolis’s Somali Justice Advocacy Center, told the media that recruiters had approached Isse at the Abubakar as-Saddique mosque, the Twin Cities’ largest Somali mosque. This account was corroborated by Isse’s attorney.
Similarly, when 26-year-old Salah Osman Ahmed pled guilty to the same charges, he spoke elliptically of recruiters who helped draw him to Somalia, mentioning “secret meetings” beginning in October 2007 with people he would only describe as “guys.”
In other U.S.-based terrorism cases where recruiters played a prominent role, the recruiters enjoyed little support from the mosques they frequented; in the Lackawanna Six case, for example, leaders of the Islamic Center in Lackawanna, N.Y., chastised Juma al-Dosari when he lectured about the need for jihad. But in the Shabaab recruitment cases, there have been allegations of mosque complicity.
Many of these allegations have focused on the Abubakar as-Saddique mosque where Isse was allegedly recruited. Osman Ahmed, whose nephew was killed in Mogadishu in June 2009 after disappearing from the Minneapolis area, pointed his finger at that mosque in testimony before the U.S. Senate, claiming that family members of men who disappeared “have been threatened for just speaking out.”
The investigation into al-Shabaab recruitment in the West must continue. Only by better understanding these recruiting networks will authorities be able to stem the flow of young men to Shabaab’s destructive camps.
National Post
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross is the director of the Center for Terrorism Research (CTR) at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and a PhD candidate in world politics at the Catholic University of America. The Nov. 4 issue of the Center’s regular publication, CTR Vantage, is devoted to al-Shabaab’s recruiting efforts in the West.Read more: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/11/25/daveed-gartenstein-ross-western-terrorism-recruits-in-somalia.aspx#ixzz0Y6PTNMGP The New Financial Post Stock Market Challenge starts in October. You could WIN your share of $60,000 in prizing. Register NOW
Posted: November 25, 2009, 8:30 AM by NP Editor
terrorism, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
On Monday, the United States unsealed terrorism charges against eight defendants for supporting a Somali Islamist group called al-Shabaab. While few lay people in Canada or the United States have heard of al-Shabaab, the al-Qaeda-connected extremist organization — which controls a significant amount of territory in Somalia — has recently become a particular concern for analysts examining possible homegrown terrorist flashpoints in North America.
Beginning in late 2007, dozens of young men of Somali descent started disappearing from diaspora communities in the West. It turned out they were returning to Somalia to train in Shabaab camps or to take up arms against Shabaab’s enemies within the country. Islamists of non-Somali descent were also travelling there to join Shabaab.
This phenomenon has been repeating itself in a number of countries. Canadian government sources claim that 20 to 30 Canadians have joined Shabaab — a development that public safety minister Peter Van Loan has said “alarmed” him. In the U.S., the disappearances have primarily clustered around Minneapolis-St. Paul, but there are credible reports of disappearances in other U.S. cities with large Somali populations as well.
The Times of London reports that British security services believe “[d]ozens of Islamic extremists have returned to Britain from terror training camps in Somalia.” SAPO, Sweden’s security service, believes that about 20 people have left that country to join Shabaab. And Australian authorities think as many as 40 Somali refugees may have gone from Australia to Somalia to liaise with Shabaab.
Many factors cause young men in the West to join Somali Islamist movements. For one, the Somali diaspora is less integrated than other immigrant communities; this can lead to disaffection and the development of a mythologized sense of homeland, leaving newcomers especially vulnerable to recruitment.
There is also a political dimension to support for Shabaab. In March 2009 U.S. Senate testimony, Professor Ken Menkhaus noted that Shabaab thrives on the “complex cocktail of nationalist, Islamist, anti-Ethiopian, anti-Western, anti-foreigner sentiments” that resulted from Ethiopia’s December 2006 invasion of Somalia.
Of course, there’s a religious aspect too. American convert Daniel Maldonado, who pleaded guilty in April 2007 to receiving training from a foreign terrorist organization, told U.S. authorities that when he decided to travel to Somalia, it was to fight jihad — something he described in religious terms as “raising the word of Allah, uppermost, by speaking and fighting against all those who are against the Islamic State.”
Shabaab recruiting is a security concern for both Somalia and the rest of the world. Within Somalia, Shabaab’s implementation of a strict version of shariah in areas it controls raises human rights worries. For example, according to Amnesty International, Shabaab jurists sentenced a 13-year-old rape victim in Kismayo to be stoned to death last year for alleged adultery.
Internationally, the problem is Shabaab’s links to global jihadist groups like al-Qaeda. One important document explaining Shabaab’s outlook, entitled A Message to the Mujaahideen in Particular and Muslims in General, and written by the American mujahid Omar Hammami (a.k.a. Abu Mansoor al-Amriki) made its way around the jihadist web in early 2008. In it, Hammami contrasted Shabaab with previous Somali Islamist movements, such as the Islamic Courts Union.
In making this distinction, Hammami put Shabaab into the same ideological category as al-Qaeda. He said that while the Islamic Courts’ objectives were limited by national boundaries, “the Shabaab had a global goal including the establishment” of an Islamic caliphate. He also wrote that Shabaab’s religious methodology was the same as that expressed by such recognizable jihadist icons as Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
In August 2008, Shabaab spokesman Sheikh Mukhtar Robow said that Shabaab was “negotiating how we can unite into one” with al-Qaeda. In the same month, Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, Shabaab’s chief military strategist (who was killed by U.S. commandos in September 2009), reached out to al-Qaeda’s senior leadership in a 24-minute video entitled March Forth.
On Nov. 19, 2008, Zawahiri responded to Nabhan’s video with one in which he called Shabaab “my brothers, the lions of Islam in Somalia.” He urged them not to lay down their weapons “before the mujahid state of Islam” has been established in Somalia.
But authorities’ biggest concern is not what people pulled into Somalia do while they’re there, but what happens when they return to the countries from which they came. There are fears that these men could end up involved in a terrorist plot — fears bolstered by the fact that Shabaab’s training is both military and ideological, with the camps fostering what Nairobi-based journalist Fredrick Nzwili described as a “fundamentalist ideology.”
A clear picture of Shabaab’s recruiting networks in the West still has not emerged, although a significant thread running through a number of cases is the presence of recruiters. This could be seen, for example, following 25-year-old Abdifatah Yusuf Isse’s guilty plea in Minnesota to providing material support to terrorists based on his travel to Somalia. Omar Jamal, director of Minneapolis’s Somali Justice Advocacy Center, told the media that recruiters had approached Isse at the Abubakar as-Saddique mosque, the Twin Cities’ largest Somali mosque. This account was corroborated by Isse’s attorney.
Similarly, when 26-year-old Salah Osman Ahmed pled guilty to the same charges, he spoke elliptically of recruiters who helped draw him to Somalia, mentioning “secret meetings” beginning in October 2007 with people he would only describe as “guys.”
In other U.S.-based terrorism cases where recruiters played a prominent role, the recruiters enjoyed little support from the mosques they frequented; in the Lackawanna Six case, for example, leaders of the Islamic Center in Lackawanna, N.Y., chastised Juma al-Dosari when he lectured about the need for jihad. But in the Shabaab recruitment cases, there have been allegations of mosque complicity.
Many of these allegations have focused on the Abubakar as-Saddique mosque where Isse was allegedly recruited. Osman Ahmed, whose nephew was killed in Mogadishu in June 2009 after disappearing from the Minneapolis area, pointed his finger at that mosque in testimony before the U.S. Senate, claiming that family members of men who disappeared “have been threatened for just speaking out.”
The investigation into al-Shabaab recruitment in the West must continue. Only by better understanding these recruiting networks will authorities be able to stem the flow of young men to Shabaab’s destructive camps.
National Post
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross is the director of the Center for Terrorism Research (CTR) at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and a PhD candidate in world politics at the Catholic University of America. The Nov. 4 issue of the Center’s regular publication, CTR Vantage, is devoted to al-Shabaab’s recruiting efforts in the West.Read more: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/11/25/daveed-gartenstein-ross-western-terrorism-recruits-in-somalia.aspx#ixzz0Y6PTNMGP The New Financial Post Stock Market Challenge starts in October. You could WIN your share of $60,000 in prizing. Register NOW
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