Free Republic

Pajamas Media | Friday, December 12, 2008 The funeral for Shirwa Ahmed last week in Burnsville, Minnesota, punctuated a growing national security threat metastasizing inside the U.S. — one Homeland Security and law enforcement authorities have quickly taken note of. Ahmed, who killed himself in a suicide bombing attack in Somalia in October, is just one of up to 40 men from the Twin Cities area who have disappeared and are feared to have returned to their homeland for training with the al-Shabaab terrorist group to wage jihad. The FBI is investigating similar disappearances in other major Somali communities in...

A 26-year-old Streeterville man was allegedly plotting to travel to Somalia where he could be trained by a terror group to commit a suicide attack against “infidels.” Shaker Masri, who authorities say held views that grew increasingly violent, is being held without bond after the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force arrested him Tuesday. Masri appeared in federal court Wednesday. The arrest happened after an 18-month investigation and just hours before he was to get on his flight, according to charges brought by federal prosecutors. “I wish to know how the explosive belt was made,” Masri allegedly said to a friend...

A 26-year-old Chicago man was trying to help finance al-Qaida and hoped to blow himself up in a suicide mission, authorities say. Shaker Masri was arrested Tuesday evening and charged by federal prosecutors on Wednesday with knowingly intending to use a weapon of mass destruction outside the United States. Authorities said Masri told an FBI informant that he planned to go to Somalia and help al-Qaida, and asked the informant for money to help buy guns once they got there. He also told the informant that he hoped to become a martyr by wearing a suicide vest, the criminal complaint...