SOMALIS FROM THE U.S. HAVE BECOME ISLAMIC TERRORISTS
by Sharon Rondeau
(Sep. 26, 2013) — A siege which lasted into its fourth day at a shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya ended on Tuesday, but questions remain about the possibility of Americans or Somali-Americans having been among the attackers.
The deadly takeover of the Westgate Mall was carried out by Al Shabaab (also Al Shabab), a terrorist group based in Somalia which seeks to institute Sharia law in that nation by overthrowing its present government. The group’s spokesman said it attacked the mall to carry out retribution for Kenya’s active role in containing it in Somalia over the past two years.
Al Shabaab has pledged its allegiance to Al Qaeda.
On Thursday, the BBC reported that 67 people were confirmed dead and that more than 60 are still missing. ABC and Reuters reported that 72 people were killed, which apparently involves six security officers and five attackers. At least three Kenyan military members were killed, and more victims may yet be found inside the mall.
Earlier this week, Kenya’s Foreign Minister Amina Mohamed stated that “two or three” terrorists came from the U.S. CNN reported that “There’s no question” that Americans have been recruited into Al Shabaab in the past and that “The weekend massacre at an upscale shopping center in Kenya is shining a new light on an old concern for Western counterterrorism officials: the recruitment of jihadist fighters from Somali communities in the United States, Canada, and Europe.”
In the same article, CNN reported that “Al-Shabaab has also found supporters in places as diverse as Seattle, St. Louis, San Diego, Minnesota, Maryland, Ohio and Alabama.”
The United States has not confirmed Mohamed’s assertion, and the FBI is reportedly investigating.
CBS News reports that Al Shabaab “has long been known to have a strong presence in at least one American city: Minneapolis,” citing a “60 Minutes” report by Steve Kroft in 2010 which stated that “41 Americans were accused of aiding terrorist groups or plotting terrorist attacks against the U.S. and its allies.” Kroft quoted then-Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano as having said that “homegrown terrorism is here to stay.”
At the 9:00 mark, the narrator of the 60 Minutes video states that in Minneapolis, where many Somalis have settled, “over the past two years, more than 20 young men have disappeared from their homes and turned up fighting in Somalia with a terrorist group called Al Shabaab…”
A man raised in Alabama reported on by Kroft who went to work with Al Shabaab was also referenced by CNN this week.
Kroft’s report focused on such “homegrown terrorists” who had ” traveled abroad for terrorist training in order to attack America or its allies.” In 2009, a “new” American citizen traveled to Pakistan for terror training in order to carry out a car bomb explosion in New York City which was thwarted.
Another “American” arrested in 2009 devised a plan to detonate explosives in the New York City subway system.
Kroft stated that “a few exceptions” to the otherwise non-violent Muslim U.S. population show that some been radicalized, sometimes by Al Qaeda, then turned their anger against the country where they were raised.
There is a community in Minneapolis known as “Little Mogadishu.” At 9:36 in the video, the narrator reports of a bright young man of Somali descent that “on the same day that Barack Obama was elected president, he failed to return to his family’s apartment.” The young man’s uncle confirmed that he had gone to Somalia after having been “brainwashed” by “the local mosque.”
The young man was reported dead, allegedly murdered by members of Al Shabaab.
Mogadishu was the location of a take-down of a helicopter carrying U.S. soldiers in 1993 who were initially deployed to deliver humanitarian aid to the war-torn nation. After the mission escalated to armed confrontation, U.S. soldiers became engaged in capturing an Islamic militia leader, spurring the helicopter attack and Islamic militants dragging the bodies of the soldiers through the streets. In 2007, Islamic militants dragged bodies of deceased Somali and Ethiopian soldiers through the streets of Mogadishu.
Kroft asked the imam of the mosque where the “20 young men” had gone and why, to which the imam responded, “The world is very, very small today…nobody can control their minds.”
Kroft’s research showed that the men left the U.S. “in small groups” so as not to attract the attention of authorities.
At 12:25 in the video, an expert tells Kroft that “many more than 20” men have been attracted into Al Shabaab. “We have hundreds of youth who have been radicalized. We have no policy answers to deal with those issues as a country.”
On Thursday, left-leaning TIME Magazine reported that “no link to the Minneapolis community has been confirmed” and that “Al-Shabab has a history of recruitment from this community—the largest, most successful terrorist radicalization of American immigrants ever.” It reports the number of American Somalis recruited into Al Shabaab as “between five and 10.” A 2011 report states the number at 20.
On September 23, 2013, Judicial Watch reported two names of Somali-American men from Minneapolis allegedly involved in the mall attack. A national security adviser to the Obama regime, Ben Rhodes, told the press that “We do monitor very carefully and have for some time been concerned about, efforts by al-Shabaab to recruit Americans or U.S. persons to come to Somalia.” Judicial Watch concurred, stating, “In the last few years the FBI and Congress have launched probes into the radicalization of the Somali American community in Minnesota. Al Shabaab recruits young men in local mosques and ships them off to train and fight in Somalia.”
Fox News reported that members of Al Shabaab come from Somalia, the Middle East, and “the United States and Europe.” In Somalia, All Shabaab uses recruiters who visit local schools to acquire members, many of whom have joined the group in exchange for food.
On September 19, The Investigative Project reported that members of the FBI had interacted in violation of stated policy with the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), which has been found to have raised money for the terrorist group Hamas. Judicial Watch stated that CAIR “has also tried to silence critics of Al Shabaab in parts of Minnesota that have been impacted by the Al Qaeda affiliate.”
CAIR has its roots in Hamas.
In 2011, after a “review process,” terms found to be “offensive” to Muslims, who complained in a body of 57 groups of bias, were removed from FBI and military training manuals. The career of at least one Army officer, Lt. Col. Matthew Dooley, was subsequently destroyed by Obama’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey.
The “Danger Room” at the website “Wired” took responsibility for informing the “White House” that “officials at the FBI, military and Justice Department taught their colleagues that “mainstream” Muslims embrace violence and compared the Islamic religion to the Death Star.”
Danger Room reported last September that some of Dooley’s guest lecturers “inaccurately” identified Obama as a Muslim and his attorneys as having “accused Dempsey of capitulation to radical Islam.”
Obama is currently supporting Syrian fighters who are pitted against the regime of Bashar al-Assad with the assistance of known Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations desirous of instituting Sharia law in Syria.
The U.S. allegedly went to war in Afghanistan in 2001 to fight “radical Islam,” which had prompted the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, killing nearly 3,000 people and injuring many others.
Following the mall attack, a 29-year-old British woman who is the widow of one of the militants responsible for the July 7, 2005 British subway attacks is being sought by Interpol in connection with charges dating back to late 2011. There has been speculation that the “White Widow” participated in the Nairobi mall siege which has not been confirmed.
On Wednesday, The New York Times published an article entitled, “U.S. Sees Direct Threat in Attack at Kenya Mall.” On Tuesday and Thursday, columnist and radio host Erik Rush discussed at length the mall attack and the possible involvement of American-raised and European Islamic militants.
Al Shabaab claimed that two or more British recruits were among the attackers.
The victims of the atrocity, two of whom were pregnant, are being remembered here. An international team of experts is participating in the investigation.