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Kenyan police and soldiers have pinned down the remaining gunmen who opened fire at a shopping centre earlier today, killing 30 and leaving at least 50 others injured. A security source at the scene in the capital Nairobi confirmed moments ago the attackers have been isolated. The source said: 'The attackers have been isolated and are pinned down in an area on one of the floors - the rest of the mall seems to be secure.' No-one has claimed responsibility for the attack, but it is looking increasingly likely the Somalia terrorist group al-Shabaab may be responsible. A statement released...

Excerpt of article accompanying 14 photos of attack at source link: Militant gunmen stormed a shopping mall in Nairobi on Saturday killing at least 25 people, including children, and sending scores fleeing in panic from shops and restaurants onto the streets, according to witnesses and the Red Cross. Shooting continued hours after the initial assault as troops surrounded the Westgate mall and police and soldiers combed the building, hunting down the attackers shop by shop. A police officer inside the building said the gunmen were barricaded inside the Nakumatt supermarket, one of Kenya's biggest chains. "We got three bodies from...

American jihadi Omar Hammami was murdered “in cold blood,” a Somalia-based Islamic center said, backing up reports that the militant from Alabama was killed Thursday by his rivals within the Somali Islamic extremist group al-Shabab.The Islamic World Issues Study Center published a tribute online in which it describes the killings of Hammami, 29, and two other militants as a “tragedy,” saying al-Shabab should be “directing their arrows at the enemies of the group,” according to a report issued Saturday by SITE Intel Group, an American private company that analyzes terror threats. … In an interview last week with Voice of...

Some 160 Somali religious scholars have issued a fatwa denouncing al-Shabab, saying the group had no place in Islam. Correspondents say it is the first time Somali religious leaders have come up with a fatwa against the group, which controls much of the country. At a conference on the phenomenon of extremism in Mogadishu, the scholars said it condemned al-Shabab's use of violence. Al-Shabab, or "The Youth", is fighting to create an Islamic state in Somalia. Despite being pushed out of key cities in the past two years, it still remains in control of smaller towns and large swathes of...

SNIPPET: "Gufran Ahmed Kauser Mohammed, 30, and Mohamed Hussein Said, 25, face an indictment charging them with conspiring to provide and attempting to provide material support to three U.S.-designated terrorist organizations that have operated in Iraq, Syria and Somalia, according to authorities." SNIPPET: "The defendants, while based overseas in 2011-13, allegedly sent thousands of dollars via Western Union to an al-Qaida terrorist affiliate, al-Nusrah Front, which is fighting the government of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. They also allegedly sent funds to al-Shabaab, another terrorist group seeking to overthrow the U.S.-backed transitional government in Somalia."

Minority Christians in Somalia faced more violence Tuesday, June 25, after news emerged that Islamic militants publicly executed a young man because he was a Christian. The 28-year-old Hassan Hurshe, who had become a Christian while living in neighboring Kenya, was shot by fighters of the al-Shabab group earlier this month while returning to the Somalian town of Jilib, on the main road from capital Mogadishu, local residents said. After his June 7 execution, Hurshe's parents, widow and son reportedly fled the area. The reported execution undecrored al-Shabab's proclaimed intention "to rid Somalia of every Christian." Though many Somali converts...

The Somali militant movement al-Shabab today launched a deadly strike against a U.N. humanitarian compound in Mogadishu that killed one international staffer, three contractors, four Somali security guards, and an unknown number of Somali civilians. Then the group gloated about it in a creepy series of Twitter posts. The tweets seemed calculated to taunt the new U.N. representative, Nicholas Kay, who opened a political office in Mogadishu this month. "So Nicholas Kay, are you still planning to settle down in Mogadishu by the end of the month?" read one tweet. U.N. officials dismissed al-Shabab's taunts, saying that they would not...

Somali militants attack UN base in Mogadishu, killing 15 Al-Shabaab says its fighters were responsible for suicide attack on compound that killed 15 people including UN personnel

A man reported to be a serving soldier is dead and two people have been shot in Woolwich, south east London, after what Sky sources understand is being treated as a terrorist attack. Downing Street has called a meeting of the Government's Cobra emergency committee after the incident in John Wilson Street, which David Cameron described as "truly shocking". Sky sources understand that senior police officers believe the killing was likely to be a politically-motivated Islamist terrorist attack. Dozens of weapons - including a number of knives - and pools of blood could be seen on the ground, where a...

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Police shot dead a couple suspected to be terrorists after they threw four grenades, wounding five officers in an overnight stand-off, a police official said Sunday. Following a tip, investigators raided the apartment where the couple was staying in the Githurai Kimbo area on the outskirts of Nairobi Saturday evening and ordered them out of their house, said Boniface Mwaniki, the head of the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit. The couple refused to surrender, threw grenades and used their eight-month-old baby as a human shield, said Mwaniki. Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/Kenya-police-kill-terror-couple-4529019.php#ixzz2TkYgF2on

NOTE The following text is a quote: www.fbi.gov/newyork/press-releases/2013/al-shabaab-operative-sentenced-in-manhattan-federal-court-to-111-months-in-prison-for-conspiring-to-support-and-receive-military-type-training-from-a-foreign-terrorist-organization Al Shabaab Operative Sentenced in Manhattan Federal Court to 111 Months in Prison for Conspiring to Support and Receive Military-Type Training from a Foreign Terrorist Organization U.S. Attorney’s Office March 27, 2013 Southern District of New York Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that Mohamed Ibrahim Ahmed was sentenced today in Manhattan federal court to 111 months in prison for conspiring to provide material support to and to receive military-type training from al Shabaab, a terrorist organization based in Somalia. The U.S. Department of...

MOGADISHU, Somalia -- Somalia's al Qaeda-allied al Shabaab rebels Saturday mocked a US offer of up to $33 million for information enabling the arrest of its top leaders, saying they would give 10 camels to anyone who helped locate President Barack Obama. The highest price put up by the US State Department on Thursday was for al Shabaab chief Ahmed Abdi aw-Mohamed -- more commonly known as Godane or Abu Zubayr -- with a $7 million bounty for information on where he is hiding. "I can assure you that these kind of things will never dissuade us from continuing the...

Those convicted Friday include 40-year-old Mohamed Mohamed Mohamud, who prosecutors said used his connections as a popular imam at a mosque in San Diego's City Heights neighborhood to raise money for the group. The other defendants were two San Diego taxi drivers, 36-year-old Basaaly Saeed Moalin and 56-year-old Issa Doreh, and 37-year-old Ahmed Nasir Taalil Mohamud of Anaheim, whose financial transfer business Shidaal Express was used to route the money, prosecutors said. Government attorneys played tapes of telephone calls, many of them between Moalin and the late Aden Hashi Ayrow, who was among the top leaders of al-Shabaab until he...

A French commando raid in Somalia to free a captive intelligence agent ended in the deaths of 17 Islamists and a French soldier. France said the hostage also died in the failed rescue, but the man's captors denied he had been killed and claimed Saturday to have seized a second soldier. Confusion surrounded early reports of the botched rescue of the French agent, known by his code-name Denis Allex. He was captured in the east African country on July 14, 2009, and last seen in a video released in October pleading for the French president to help him. But it...

NOTE The following text is a quote: Alabama Men Arrested on Terrorism Charges U.S. Attorney’s Office December 11, 2012 Southern District of Alabama MOBILE, AL—U.S. Attorney Kenyen R. Brown of the Southern District of Alabama and Stephen E. Richardson, Special Agent in Charge of the Mobile Division of the FBI, announced that Mohammad Abdul Rahman Abukhdair, 25, and Randy Wilson, also known as Rasheed Wilson, 25, both U.S. citizens living in Mobile, were arrested today on terrorism charges filed in the Southern District of Alabama. A criminal complaint signed on December 10, 2012, charges Abukhdair and Wilson with conspiring to...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Investigators probing the London terror bombings are focusing on an elusive British Muslim suspect who is connected to a previous plot to set up a terrorist training camp in rural southern Oregon, according to U.S. counterterrorism officials. Officials told both NBC News and CNN Wednesday that Haroon Rashid Aswat, believed to be a mastermind of the London bombings, is the same British-born Muslim of Indian descent who scouted a Bly, Oregon ranch to set up a terror camp. These officials said Aswat, a Pakistani national being sought for questioning as a person of interest by British authorities,...

A one-time janitor at a Minneapolis mosque was found guilty Thursday of conspiring to help a terrorist group recruit young Minnesota men for a holy war in their native Somalia. A federal jury in Minneapolis deliberated about 8 1/2 hours before convicting Mahamud Said Omar, 46, in a case that provided the clearest picture to date of a worldwide investigation into the recruiting of at least 20 young men to fight in Somalia with Al-Shabab, a U.S.-designated terror group. Omar, of Minneapolis, rocked gently in his seat and studied the jurors dispassionately as the verdict was read. Guilty on count...

MINNEAPOLIS - A Minnesota man accused of helping to recruit and finance U.S. fighters for an overseas terror group heads to trial Monday in a case that's expected to show how some young Somali expatriates in Minneapolis were persuaded to risk their lives for insurgents back home. Mahamud Said Omar, 46, faces five terror-related counts as part of a much broader investigation into recruiting by al-Shabab, a U.S.-designated terror group linked to al-Qaida at the center of much of the violence in Somalia. Since 2007, more than 20 young men are believed to have left Minnesota for the East African...

SNIPPET: "I. When considering the matter of jihadis online, remember that most of what we think we know is based on analyses of the comments made by an handful of vocal activists. The vast majority of jihadis online, be they on forums or social networking sites[i], say nothing. Skillful translations and insightful analyses by definition tell us little about this potentially lethal yet silent majority."

SNIPPET: "Google removed 640 videos from YouTube in the second half of last year amid fears they promoted terrorism. The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) made a request for five user accounts to be closed for allegedly promoting terrorism. Google agreed and deleted the 640 videos."