The number of terrorist-related incidents involving Somali Muslims who have come to the United States as refugees continues to grow. How long will it be before these “homegrown jihadists” take direct action against us here in the United States?
FBI confirms terror indictments, missing Somalis linked
by Elizabeth Stawicki, Minnesota Public Radio,
Laura Yuen, Minnesota Public Radio
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/07/13/terror_indictment/?refid=0
St. Paul, Minn. — A federal grand jury in St. Paul has indicted two men on terrorism charges, in connection with the ongoing investigation of missing Somali men.
The indictment, which was filed in February but unsealed Monday, names Abdifatah Yusuf Isse and Salah Osman Ahmed of Brooklyn Park with providing material support to terrorists, namely themselves.
The indictment also charges the men with conspiring to "kill, maim, and injure" outside of the U.S. It says Ahmed boarded a Northwest flight last December from Minneapolis to Amsterdam with a final destination of Somalia to "fight jihad in Somalia."
Ahmed is also charged with lying to the FBI.
E.K. Wilson, spokesman of the FBI office in Minneapolis, confirmed that the indictments were connected to the investigation of missing Somali men believed to have joined a terrorist group fighting in their homeland.
Wilson said authorities arrested Ahmed, of New Brighton, in that town Saturday without incident. He declined to comment further. "The investigation continues," he said.
About 20 men from Minnesota are believed to be fighting in Somalia's civil war. The first wave left in 2007. Authorities think one of those early travelers, Shirwa Ahmed of Minneapolis, blew himself up in a suicide bombing in Somalia last fall.
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Grand jury: 2 conspired to commit terror acts in Somalia
By David Hanners
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Updated: 07/13/2009 06:55:33 PM CDT
http://www.twincities.com/news/ci_12828798?source=rss
Federal authorities today unsealed a five-month-old indictment charging two Twin Cities men with terrorism conspiracy in their native Somalia.
One of the men, Salah Osman Ahmed, had been a fugitive but had been apprehended recently and appeared before a federal magistrate today. He is to have a detention hearing Thursday.
Federal officials would not say when or where he was taken into custody.
The other man, Abdifatah Yusuf Isse, was arrested in February and has been held since then, said his attorney, Paul Engh, of Minneapolis.
The indictment says that at least Ahmed, of Brooklyn Park, traveled to Somalia in December 2007 with another person "so that they could fight jihad in Somalia."
Engh — who is required to have a security clearance just to defend Isse — said that because virtually all of the case remains sealed, he couldn't discuss the case.
"I can't do that without talking about something that's sealed," he said. "I can't even say if they traveled together. I've read a ton of stuff and I'd rather not comment on the substance of it. I'm totally aware of the facts. I'm well-versed in what's going on, but I really can't say much."
Similarly, the office of outgoing U.S. Attorney Frank Magill declined comment. "Our office is not issuing a news release on the Salah Ahmed indictment. Our office also has no statement regarding the indictment," said David Anderson, a spokesman for Magill.
Federal officials have been investigating claims that some young male Somali refugees in the Twin Cities have been recruited by Islamic groups to fight in their homeland.
A fourth young Somali-American man who disappeared from the Twin Cities in recent years apparently has been killed in Somalia, a local community leader said Sunday night.
Omar Jamal, executive director of the St. Paul-based Somali Justice Advocacy Center, said his group had received word that Zakaria Maruf, 30, of Minneapolis was killed in combat.
Maruf is one of an estimated 20 men from the Twin Cities suspected of going to Somalia to fight in the Islamist Shabaab insurgency in the country's civil war. Last weekend, relatives and community leaders said another from the group — Jamal Bana, 20 — also had been killed in Somalia.
Another young Somali man from Minneapolis, Shirwa Ahmed, is believed to have carried out a suicide bombing last October as part of coordinated attacks that targeted a United Nations compound, the Ethiopian consulate and the presidential palace in Hargeisa, capital of the Somaliland region.
FBI Director Robert Mueller said in February that the bomber had probably been "radicalized" in the Twin Cities.
In June, the Minneapolis family of another young Somali, Burhan Hassan, said they believed he had been killed and buried in Somalia.
Isse and Ahmed were each charged with a single count of providing material support to terrorists, as well as a count of conspiracy to "kill, kidnap, maim and injure." The alleged incidents occurred between September 2007 and December 2008, the indictment claims.
The dates coincide with the disappearance of the first wave of young Somali men from the Twin Cities.
The recruitment of the Twin Cities men can be traced to a group of Somali immigrants from Northern Europe and other countries who traveled to Somalia in 2005 to fight with the Islamist movement, a senior law enforcement official said, according to a New York Times report Sunday. A handful of those men later went to Minneapolis and helped persuade the first large group from the Twin Cities to leave for Somalia starting in late 2007, the official said.
The material support, the indictment alleges, was "namely personnel including themselves, knowing and intending that the material support and resources" were going to be used to kill, kidnap or injure people in a foreign country.
The conspiracy charge alleges that they conspired with each other "and others, known and unknown to the grand jury," to engage in terrorism.
The indictment alleges that on Dec. 6, 2007, Ahmed boarded a Northwest Airlines flight from Minneapolis to Amsterdam, "with a final destination of Somalia."
Ahmed is named in two additional counts of making false statements to FBI agents. The first of the counts alleges that while he knew people on his December 2007 flights to Somalia, on July 30 he told the FBI that he didn't know anyone on the flights.
The second of the charges claims that he traveled with others on the flights, but on Dec. 8, he told the FBI that he traveled alone.
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