http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSLC594836
“Kenyan police arrest American heading for Somalia”
NAIROBI, Oct 12 (Reuters) -
SNIPPET: “A witness told Reuters that the man was arrested on Sunday by police manning the immigration office at the border town of Liboi in Kenya’s North Eastern province. He was on his way to Qoqani in southern Somalia without any security escort.”
SNIPPET: “Police thought the man’s willingness to enter the conflict-torn nation where foreigners are routinely kidnapped for huge ransoms was puzzling, the witness added. The area he wanted to go to is controlled by the al Shabaab rebel group which the United States says is al Qaeda’s proxy in Somalia.
The U.S. national had said he was a Muslim and denied any connection to Islamic radicals who make up the bulk of the insurgency in Somalia, said the witness.”
http://www.meforum.org/2486/somalia-al-shabaab-strategic-challenge
FALL 2009 • VOLUME XVI: NUMBER 4
“The Strategic Challenge of Somalia’s Al-Shabaab
Dimensions of Jihad”
by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
Middle East Quarterly
Fall 2009, pp. 25-36
SNIPPET: “Al-Shabaab’s Strategic Outlook
Today, Al-Shabaab is a capable fighting force that implements a strict version of Shari’a in key areas of Somalia. Its range is enhanced by training camps from which many Western Muslims have graduated. This has made Al-Shabaab a significant security concern to several countries, including the United States.
Terrorist training. Given the relationship noted above between Al-Shabaab and Al-Qaeda, which includes ideological affinity and interlocking leadership, there are worries about Al-Shabaab’s connections to transnational terrorism. These concerns are bolstered by Al-Shabaab’s operation of terrorist training camps, successors to the ICU camps.
One of the clearest signs that training camps have reopened in Somalia is an exodus of young Somali men from Minneapolis-St. Paul and elsewhere in the United States.[72] There are further reports of young Somali men going missing from Canada, Europe, Australia, and Saudi Arabia.[73] A senior U.S. military intelligence officer reports that simultaneous disappearances in several countries are best explained by the reopening of Somali training facilities such as those in Ras Kamboni.[74]
The biggest concern is not what these individuals do while in Somalia but what happens when they return to the countries from which they came. It is a concern not only for the United States but also Britain: The Times of London reports that the British security services believe that “[d]ozens of Islamic extremists have returned to Britain from terror training camps in Somalia.”[75] British intelligence analysts are concerned about possible terror attacks in the U.K., and British television has reported that an October 2007 suicide bombing in Somalia was thought to have been carried out by a U.K.-raised bomber.[76] Peter Neumann of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence at King’s College, London, told Channel 4 News: “The numbers I hear (going from Britain to Somalia) are 50, 60 or 70, but in reality we don’t know. You don’t need big numbers for terrorism.”[77]
Al-Shabaab’s training is both military and ideological.”