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Where is the hardest place in the world to be a Christian citizen? North Korea, perhaps? Saudi Arabia? According to Lars Widerberg of Intercessor's Network, it is the nation of Somalia. There are thought to be no more than a thousand Christians in a resident population of 8 million people, with perhaps a few thousand more in the diaspora. The Islamist Shabab militia, which controls most of southern Somalia, is dedicated to hunting these remaining Christians down and eliminating every one of them. Christian men attend mosques on Fridays, so as not to arouse suspicion. Bibles are kept hidden. There...

SNIPPET: "The third article, titled "Al-Shabaab Recruiting in the West," takes a comprehensive look at what we know about the group's efforts to recruit fighters in the United States, and in other Western countries. The final article concerns the efficacy of the Somali president's recent diplomatic efforts in Minneapolis, Columbus, OH, and Chicago."

The U.S. Navy says an American-flagged cargo vessel has escaped a brush with armed pirates off the coast of East Africa. A spokesman for the U.S. 5th Fleet in Bahrain says the MV Harriette came under small arms fire from suspected pirates Monday aboard two skiffs about 360 nautical miles off Mombasa, Kenya. Lt. Nate Christensen says pirates came within three feet (a meter) of the vessel, but were unable to board. He says no one on the U.S. ship was injured.

SNIPPET: ""Moreover, freedom in America is indivisible from the freedom to practice one's religion. That is why there is a mosque in every state in our union, and over 1,200 mosques within our borders. That's why the United States government has gone to court to protect the right of women and girls to wear the hijab and to punish those who would deny it." -- Barack Obama, Cairo, June 4, 2009 But what about the rights of women like this one -- the right not to wear the hijab? Who is standing up for them? "BREAKING NEWS: Somalia Militants Kill...

A crowd of hundreds attended the wedding between Ahmed Muhamed Dore and Safia Abdulleh in Guriceel, in the Galguduud region of Somalia. Mr Dore said: "Today God helped me realise my dream." Mr Dore and his teenage bride are from the same village, and he said that he had waited for her to grow up before proposing. He said: "I didn't force her, but used my experience to convince her of my love, and then we agreed to marry." The bride’s family said she was "happy with her new husband".

A British man has told how he and his wife were kidnapped by armed pirates while the pair slept aboard their yacht in the Indian Ocean. Paul Chandler, of Kent, speaking by phone to ITV news, said: "I was asleep and men with guns came aboard." Mr Chandler, 59, said he and his wife, Rachel, 55, are currently being held hostage on board a container ship. Their yacht was found during counter-piracy operations after a major multi-national search for the pair began. Mr Chandler, from Tunbridge Wells, said the raid had come in the early hours. ... Mr Chandler said...

AFP - European Union warships have captured seven suspected pirates off the coast of Somalia after two fast boats attacked a French fishing vessel, the EU's naval force said Wednesday. Soldiers aboard the fishing vessel fired on the pirates after they attacked it some 350 nautical miles east of Mogadishu Tuesday, said a statement. A German warship was despatched to the scene, while a helicopter from a nearby Spanish naval vessel -- the ESPS Canarias -- was launched and located the two skiffs trying to flee the area. "The helicopter fired warning shots to stop both skiffs, after which the...

‘Moderate’ Islamist group had long suspected woman in Puntland was Christian. Three masked members of a militant Islamist group in Somalia last week shot and killed a Somali Christian who declined to wear a veil as prescribed by Muslim custom... Members of the comparatively “moderate” Suna Waljameca group killed Amina Muse Ali... in her home . Ali had told Christian leaders that she had received several threats from members of Suna Waljameca for not wearing a veil, symbolic of adherence to Islam. She had said members of the group had long monitored her movements because they suspected she was a...

European Union Naval Forces spotted a yacht towing two smaller boats behind it Tuesday after Somali pirates claimed to have seized a British couple and their boat in the Indian Ocean during their round-the-world voyage. The couple have been missing for four days. Commander John Harper told Sky News a yacht resembling the 38-foot craft had been spotted by a European Union Naval Force Somalia helicopter. He said that the boat they had found was about where they might have expected the hijacked yacht to be by this point. He added that although it was too dark to make out...

"Somali jihadists forcing civilians to watch executions" SNIPPET: "Movies and television? No way. Executions? Bring the whole family -- or else! "Somalis 'made to view executions'," by Mary Harper for BBC News, October 25:" SNIPPET: "Hundreds of people in Somalia have been forced to watch Islamist militants executing two people accused of spying. People in Merca said al-Shabaab militia patrolled the town with loudspeakers, demanding they attend the executions. The militants also ordered schools to close for the day as they were keen for children to watch the two men being shot dead by a firing squad. Most of those...

"Harakat Al-shabab Mujahideen vow they will deflect the fighting to Kampala and Bujumbura" Shabelle: SOMALIA SNIPPET: "MOGADISHU (Sh.M. Network) – the Islamist officials of Harakat Al-shabab Mujahideen have Friday talked about yesterday’s shelling in Somali capital Mogadishu and said that they will deflect the fighting in Mogadishu Kampala and Bujumbura." SNIPPET: "The official of Harakat Al-shabab Mujahideen had threatened to the African Union troops reiterating that they will replace the fighting continuing in Mogadishu to the capital cities of Uganda and Burundi."

Daniel Joseph Maldonado, a former Houston resident who convereted to Islam and admitted training with terrorists, was sentenced today to 10 years in prison and given a $1,000 fine. Maldonado, 28, pleaded guilty in April to training with al-Qaida in East Africa. He is the first American charged with joining the terrorist organization in Somalia. The charge carried a maximum prison sentence of 10 years and a fine up to $250,000. He admitted his association with terrorists in exchange for no further prosecution by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Houston. Maldonado came to the attention of federal investigators in late...

BOSTON - A pharmacy college graduate conspired with two other men on a terror plot to kill two prominent U.S. politicians and carry out a holy war by attacking shoppers in U.S. malls and American troops in Iraq, prosecutors said Wednesday. But their plans — in which the men used code words like "peanut butter and jelly" for fighting in Somalia and "culinary school" for terrorist camps — were thwarted in part when they could not find training and were unable to buy automatic weapons, authorities said. Tarek Mehanna worked with the men from 2001 to May 2008 on the...

MOGADISHU, Somalia -- A powerful Islamist group linked to al-Qaida on Wednesday ordered two radio stations in southwestern Somalia to stop broadcasts indefinitely. Al-Shabab delivered letters to Jubba and Warsan Radio stations early Wednesday ordering the shut down without giving any reasons, said Mohamed Adawe, a journalist with Jubba Radio. Another Jubba Radio journalist, Abdikarin Jakarta, said the letters threatened the stations with unspecified action if they disobeyed the closure orders.

ADD to post no. 105: http://www2.lasvegasnow.com/docs/terror_complaint.pdf http://www2.lasvegasnow.com/docs/terror_indict.pdf LAS VEGAS, NV — SNIPPET: “The real end, however, came in a Minnesota Federal Court. Two weeks ago, the FBI arrested Abdow Munye Abdow for two counts of making false statements to a federal official. The FBI believes Abdow lied about his trip to Las Vegas, and a passenger he was with who was on the terrorism watch list. The Nevada Highway Patrol pulled over Abdow and four other people on October 6, 2009 for speeding. Trooper Alan Davidson, a spokesperson for NHP, said the officer on the scene began asking questions.” SNIPPET:...

YOUR OWN LANDMINES BOXES OF GRENADES FULLY AUTOMATIC ASSAULT RIFLES thelastcrusade.org How do you get Somali Muslims to participate in an educational contest? Do you lure them with a luxury cruise as top prize? Do you give them a chance to win a walk around the Kaaba free of charge? No, you offer them a chance to win one-way ticket to jihad, replete with a cache of AK-47 assault rifles, a box of grenades, and a few anti-tank landmines. Should they get killed in the struggle, the top prize winners are sure to enter seventh heaven where seventy houris...

KISMAYO, Somalia (AFP) – No luxury cruise but a ticket to jihad was the prize for the winners of a team quiz organised by Somalia's insurgent Shebab group during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan. "The reason the young men were rewarded with weapons is to encourage them to participate in the ongoing holy war against the enemies of Allah in Somalia," Sheikh Abdullahi Alhaq said at a ceremony late Friday. The radio-broadcast quiz organised by the Al-Qaeda-inspired Shebab organisation in the southern Somali city of Kismayo lasted throughout Ramadan, which ended last month. Five neighbourhoods of the port city...

A hardline Islamist group in Somalia has begun publicly whipping women for wearing bras that they claim violate Islam as they are 'deceptive'. The insurgent group Al Shabaab has sent gunmen into the streets of Mogadishu to round up any women who appear to have a firm bust, residents claimed yesterday. The women are then inspected to see if the firmness is natural, or if it is the result of wearing a bra. If they are found wearing , they are ordered to remove it and shake their breasts, residents said. Al Shabaab, which seeks to impose a strict interpretation...

Living With Osama bin Laden: First Wife Tells of Husband's Bid To Train His Sons As Suicide Bombers Daily Mail Reporter 12th October 2009 Osama bin Laden was a tyrant who trained his own children to be suicide bombers and murdered their pets, his first wife has revealed. In a new book about her time living with bin Laden, Najwa Ghanem has told how she gave birth to 11 of his 14 children because bin Laden said that Islam needed many warriors. And millionaire bin Laden would not allow any modern appliances in his home, even refusing his son medicine...

A 26-year-old man has been charged with making false statements to federal officials investigating the disappearance of as many as 20 Somali men from Minnesota. Abdow M. Abdow, a U.S. citizen of Somali descent, was arrested Friday and made his first appearance Tuesday in federal court in St. Paul. FBI spokesman E.K. Wilson says Abdow's case is related to the investigation of the missing men, who are thought to have gone to join a terrorist group fighting in their homeland.

Somalia: Christian Leader Killed On Sept. 28 an Islamic extremist shot and killed Mariam Muhina Hussein, an underground church leader, after discovering six Bibles in her possession, according to Compass Direct News. The day before the shooting, a leader of the Islamic extremist group al Shabaab reportedly sent his wife to visit Hussein's home in Marerey villange. She pretended she was interested in learning about Christianity. During the visit, Hussein read passages of the Bible and told the woman that she could visit regularly to discuss God's Word, according to Compass. The following day, the al Shabaab leader, identified as...

French marines aboard trawlers in the Indian Ocean Saturday fired on pirates to repel a dawn attack, as two vessels used in the attack were subsequently captured by Seychelles coastguards, sources said. "Three small launches... (which were) nearly invisible and that we had on the radar at the last moment, chased us," a member of the crew of the Drennac, one of two fishing vessels approached by the pirates, told AFP by telephone. The French military said the marines had first fired flares then "warning shots in the air and across the bows of the pirates' boats", before finally, when...

Al Shabaab extremists shoot 69-year-old after finding Bibles on him at checkpoint. NAIROBI, Kenya, September 18 (CDN) - The faith journey of a long-time underground Christian in Somalia ended in tragedy this week when Islamic militants controlling a security checkpoint killed him after finding Bibles in his possession. Militants from the Muslim extremist al Shabaab killed 69-year-old Omar Khalafe on Tuesday (Sept. 15) at a checkpoint they controlled 10 kilometers from Merca, a Christian source told Compass. A port city on the Indian Ocean 70 kilometers (45 miles) from Mogadishu, Merca is the main city of the Lower Shabele region....

PARIS - Somali pirates in two skiffs fired on a French navy vessel early Wednesday after apparently mistaking it for a commercial boat, the French military said. The French ship gave chase and captured five suspected pirates. No one was wounded by the volleys from the Kalashnikov rifles directed at La Somme, a 3,800-ton refueling ship, French military spokesman Rear Adm. Christophe Prazuck said

PARIS — Somali pirates attempted to storm the flagship commanding French military forces in a night attack in the Indian Ocean after mistaking it for a cargo vessel, the military said here on Wednesday. French sailors saw off the attack and captured five pirates in the incident while no-one was injured, military spokesman Admiral Christophe Prazuck said. "The pirates, who because of the darkness took the French ship for a commercial vessel, were on board two vessels and opened fire with Kalashnikovs," he said. The pirates had tried to storm the 160-metre (525-foot) 18,000-tonne La Somme, a fuel supply ship...

Note: The following text is a quote: Major Executive Speeches Robert S. Mueller, III Director Federal Bureau of Investigation International Association of Chiefs of Police Annual Conference Denver, Colorado October 5, 2009 Good morning. As always, it is good to be here. I have been coming to the IACP since 2001. Year after year, I look out at all of you, and I ask myself the same question. Could I handle the challenges you face, day after day? Could I do the jobs you do with the same success? And the answer is no, for one simple reason: I could...

The president of Somalia says he condemns the recruiting of young men from Minnesota for terrorist activity in his homeland, and he plans to work with the U.S. government to bring those who are still alive back home. President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed spoke Sunday morning through an interpreter in an interview with The Associated Press. He says he plans to publicly condemn the terrorist recruiting at a rally later in the day.

Bantu woman shot after wife of militant confirmed she had Bibles. NAIROBI, Kenya, October 1 (CDN) — Islamic militants in Somalia this week killed a woman who led an underground Christian movement in the war-torn country. Sources told Compass that a leader of Islamic extremist al Shabaab militia in Lower Juba identified only as Sheikh Arbow shot to death 46-year-old Mariam Muhina Hussein at 2 p.m. on Monday (Sept. 28) in Marerey village after discovering she had six Bibles. Marerey is eight kilometers (five miles) from Jilib, part of the neighboring Middle Juba region. Local sources said that on Sunday...

For the first time, the FBI director has stated on the record that the Al Qaeda-linked group al-Shabaab is no longer content to strike within the East African nation of Somalia.They could strike the United States. That grim assessment is the first time the FBI director or any other senior law enforcement or intelligence official has stated on the record that the Al Qaeda-linked group al-Shabaab is no longer content to strike within the East African nation of Somalia. During a hearing on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, FBI Director Robert Mueller was asked if members of al-Shabaab, which translates as...

Just minutes ago I posted an article about the persecution of Christians in Egypt. We now see just how "tolerant" Islam is in Somalia. This is a worldwide problem that has come to our shores as well. Will we sit silently and let them takeover or we will defend our freedoms and fight Islam? It is time for non-Muslims to rise up and take a stand against Islam.

Forget Lions and Tigers The Latest in Big Game thelastcrusade.org Somalia (MNN) ― Somalia's Muslim militants are hunting down converts to Christianity. According to Voice of the Martyrs Canada, Al-Shabaab members have murdered 14 believers since July 15. Compass Direct News reports the September 15 shooting death of 69-year-old Omar Khalafe, an underground Christian who had Bibles in his possession.On the day of his death, Khalafe was carrying 25 Somali Bibles he hoped to deliver to an underground fellowship in Somalia. At a checkpoint controlled by al Shabaab--a rebel group linked with al Qaeda which has taken over large...

An Australian naval ship has thwarted an attack on a merchant vessel in the Gulf of Aden, off the coast of Yemen, by suspected Somali pirates armed with a rocket propelled grenade launcher. The HMAS Toowoomba answered an emergency call from merchant vessel BBC Portugal after it sighted an armed boat approaching on Sept. 20, Australia's Department of Defence said today in a faxed statement. Along with the grenade launcher, staff from the Toowoomba found six AK47 assault rifles, a G3 assault rifle and a large quantity of ammunition. Somali pirates venturing out to sea as monsoon winds abate are...

Somali pirates attempted to hijack a ship Thursday night in the Mogadishu port but were eventually scared away by a rescue effort. The Syrian captain on the Panama-flagged ship was killed in the incident. The African Union forces and Somali police responded after receiving a distress call from the ship. But Barigye Ba-hoku, the spokesman for African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia, known as AMISOM, says that by the time his forces got there, the pirates had already climbed aboard the vessel. "We reacted very quickly and tried to prevent these characters from boarding on to the ship, but unfortunately...

MOGADISHU, Somalia – We duck through a hole in a wall along this city’s blasted-out waterfront, following teenage gunmen with skinny shoulders and enormous weapons. We creep over old fishing nets that haven’t touched salt water for years. All around us are ruins – ruined buildings, ruined boats, streets pulverized to a fine, bluish-gray rubble. This part of Mogadishu used to be a beautiful seaside promenade, the gem in the Italian colonial crown, a place where tourists gazed out at the Indian Ocean rollers and where Somali fishermen hauled in boatloads of marlin, lobster and tuna. Now, it’s the front...

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — A 29-year-old man has been arrested on charges that he allegedly planned to bomb a federal courthouse in Illinois and kill employees there. Federal officials say the case has no connections with the major terrorism investigation under way in Colorado and New York.

"Moroccan police arrest 24 from network coordinating with jihadists "in Sweden, Belgium and the Syria-Iraq zone"" SNIPPET: "The security services in Morocco have arrested 24 members of a "terrorist network" linked to Al-Qaeda that recruited volunteers for suicide bombings in Iraq, the interior ministry said Wednesday. In a statement carried by the official MAP news agency, it said the network -- coordinating "with terrorists in Sweden, Belgium and the Syria-Iraq zone" -- also sought recruits for Al-Qaeda to fight in Afghanistan and Somalia. The suspects -- now being questioned by police -- were arrested in several cities in Morocco, said...

Federal investigators are looking into reports that one of the men who detonated a truck bomb in Mogadishu last week that killed 21 peacekeepers was a Somali refugee who had lived in Seattle as recently as 2007. Two federal law enforcement sources, both speaking on condition of anonymity, said the FBI in Seattle received information last week that indicated that one of the suicide bombers was from Seattle. "We've been looking into it ever since," said one of the sources. One of the sources, a senior federal law enforcement official, said the FBI is actively investigating whether terrorist groups are...

A powerful insurgent group in war-ravaged Somalia has formally pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network for the first time in an apparent effort to accelerate recruiting among Somalis, including emigres in the United States. The group, al-Shabab, made the pledge in a video called "Labaik ya Osama" -- "At your service, Osama" -- released on extremist Web sites Sunday and shown Monday at a public screening in a suburb of the Somali capital, Mogadishu, after prayers at the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. "This is certainly the most overt gesture of support for...

Note: Photos included. Quote: New Shabaab al-Mujahideen Video: "At Your Service, O' Osama" (featuring Abu Mansour al-Amriki) By Evan Kohlmann The Shabaab al-Mujahideen Movement in Somalia has released a new propaganda video titled, "Labayk Ya Osama", or "At Your Service, O' Osama." The video includes footage of the "Abu Suleim" training camp in southern Somalia and new scenes of "Abu Mansour the American" (a.k.a. Omar Hammami).

Note: Photo included. Photo caption: "Hizbul Islam leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys." # A senior Islamist leader and ally of al Qaeda has called for additional suicide attacks against African Union peacekeepers operating in Mogadishu. Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, the leader of Hizbul Islam, or the Party of God, called for more suicide attacks during a sermon in the town of Elashabiyah, just outside Mogadishu. "I also call upon the people to carry out more attacks against the African forces; they came to Somalia to assist our enemy, kill them ... in any way possible and use suicide attacks to...

SNIPPET: "The Swedes being held in Pakistan include Mehdi Ghezali, who spent two years in Guantánamo Bay following his 2001 arrest in Afghanistan, as well as 28-year-old Munir Awad and 19-year-old Safia Benaouda, and their two and a half-year-old boy. Awad and Benaouda, who was pregnant at the time, were arrested in Kenya in 2007 after fleeing Somalia following the invasion of troops from Ethiopia. They were held in an Ethiopian prison for three months on suspicions of being connected with Somali jihadists fighting against Ethiopia, but no formal charges were ever brought against them." SNIPPET: "Police say they got...

NAIROBI (Reuters) – The United Nations is investigating the use of its vehicles by suicide bombers who killed 17 African Union peacekeepers at their main base in Somalia, a senior official said on Saturday. The Somali government warned on Friday that Islamist rebels from the al Shabaab group had six more stolen U.N. cars primed with explosives ready for suicide attacks. "There are very large numbers of U.N. vehicles in Somalia that have been used for a variety of projects," Mark Bowden, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Somalia, told Reuters. He said the United Nations had been given the chassis...

Suicide attackers breached security at the African Union base in Somalia’s capital by using vehicles with United Nations logos to carry out a deadly double car bombing, the organization told CNN. “The vehicles had U.N. logos on them and they entered inside the headquarters and then exploded,” said Gaffel Nkolokosa, spokesman for the African Union mission in Somalia, known as AMISOM. “We do not know if they were, in fact, U.N. vehicles.” Jean Ping, chairman of the African Union Commission, issued a statement strongly condemning the attack on the base in Mogadishu, saying it had killed “a number of peacekeepers.”...

The prosecution of a Somali teenager accused of leading a pirate attack on an American cargo ship off the coast of Africa was taken off the fast track Thursday after a lawyer said more time will be needed to translate some Somali recordings into English. Abdiwali Abdiqadir Muse appeared briefly in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, where he was brought after his arrest aboard the U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama in April. Authorities say Muse was the only surviving pirate of a group that he led in an attack off the coast of Africa on the cargo ship, which was carrying humanitarian...

Terrorism: At a time when the public is losing heart on the war in Afghanistan, a decisive strike on Somalia's al-Qaida chief Monday reminds us that victory is possible and President Obama is an able leader on this front.Ten days ago, Obama signed an executive order authorizing U.S. special forces to hunt down and blow away Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, a ruthless Kenyan-born terrorist operating out of Somalia. In 1998, Nabhan had a role in the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, which left 212 dead, including 12 Americans. The attack was so vicious, it put Osama bin...

MOMBASA, Kenya — The mother of a top al-Qaida fugitive who was killed in a U.S. raid in Somalia demanded today to see her son's body while a Somalia-based group claimed him as their leader and confirmed his death. Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, a 30-year-old Kenyan, was wanted for the 2002 car bombing of a beach resort in Kenya and a failed attempt to shoot down an Israeli airliner. Three senior U.S. officials familiar with Monday's commando raid confirmed he was killed. Aisha Abdallah told the Associated Press she wants "to see the body of my son before it is...

The Somali pirates preying on shipping in the Gulf of Aden and more recently the Indian Ocean are zeroed in on their targets by well-placed informers in London, a world center for shipbroking and insurance, using satellite phones, according to a European military intelligence report. The document, which was obtained by Cadena SER, a Spanish radio station, says the "consultants" in London help the pirates select their targets, providing data on the ships' cargoes and courses... The U.N. International Maritime Bureau reported this month that there had been a dramatic surge in piracy in the waters of the Horn of...

* Nabhan accused of 2002 Mombasa bomb * Was allied with Somalia's al Shabaab rebels * Insurgents vow to target Western nations (Recasts, updates throughout) MOGADISHU, Sept 15 (Reuters) - Somalia's al Shabaab insurgents denounced a U.S. commando raid that killed one of east Africa's most wanted al Qaeda suspects and vowed on Tuesday to continue their fight against Western nations. U.S. special forces in helicopters struck a car in rebel-held southern Somalia on Monday, killing the Kenyan said to have built the truck bomb that claimed 15 lives at an Israeli-owned beach hotel on the Kenyan coast in 2002....

Peter Galbraith’s exit from Kabul, even if temporary, is a rebuff to Richard Holbrooke, his long-time ally and a fellow big American trying to cut through the Afghan fog. The absence of the United Nations’ second most senior official comes during a new frost in relations between Washington and President Karzai and raises the question of whether Holbrooke, the US troubleshooter in the region, still has a plausible job to do. For some weeks there has been a rumble of quiet questions about whether he might consider the end of the year the limit of his useful efforts — although...

A Somali militia opposed to Islamist insurgents al Shabaab praised a U.S. commando raid that killed one of the region's most wanted al Qaeda suspects and called for more strikes to wipe out foreign jihadists. U.S. special forces in helicopters struck a car in rebel-held southern Somalia on Monday, killing the Kenyan said to have built the truck bomb that claimed 15 lives at an Israeli-owned beach hotel on the Kenyan coast in 2002. "We are very pleased with the helicopters that killed the foreign al Shabaab fighters," Sheikh Abdullahi Sheikh Abu Yussuf, the Ahlu Sunna spokesman, told Reuters late...