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Islamic Extremists Execute Young Convert in Somalia Christian accused of trying to convert Muslim teenager found shot on Mogadishu street. NAIROBI, Kenya, November 23 (CDN) — Islamic extremists controlling part of the Somali capital of Mogadishu this month executed a young Christian they accused of trying to convert a 15-year-old Muslim to Christianity. Members of the Islamic extremist group al Shabaab had taken 23-year-old Mumin Abdikarim Yusuf into custody on Oct. 28 after the 15-year-old boy reported him to the militants, an area source told Compass. Yusuf’s body was found on Nov. 14 on an empty residential street in Mogadishu,...

Note: The following text is a quote: Terror Charges Unsealed in Minnesota Against Eight Defendants, Justice Department Announces The Justice Department announced that terrorism charges have been unsealed today in the District of Minnesota against eight defendants. According to the charging documents, the offenses include providing financial support to those who traveled to Somalia to fight on behalf of al-Shabaab, a designated foreign terrorist organization; attending terrorist training camps operated by al-Shabaab; and fighting on behalf of al-Shabaab. Thus far, 14 defendants have been charged in the District of Minnesota in indictments or criminal complaints that have been unsealed and...

Federal authorities are expected to announce charges against eight more people today in a long-running investigation into how perhaps dozens of young men from the Minneapolis area were recruited to join an Al Qaeda-linked group in Somalia. It will be the most significant and public move to date in the case. Charges against the eight people will be announced at a joint FBI-U.S. Attorney's Office press conference in Minneapolis on Monday afternoon, a source said. Some, if not all, of the individuals will be charged with providing material support to terrorists, the source said. Many of those charged have already...

It’s just unbelievable! How foolishly stuck on stupid mankind can be when it comes down to maintaining law and order. But I shouldn’t be so amazed, after all, we are just a whisker away from full scale anarchy in America. It’s amazing how the damn fools in our society are debating whether or not to arm ships as a defense against these pirates. How anybody could be so stupid as to oppose the idea is baffling. No doubt the opposition is coming from the same damn fools who oppose wiretapping suspected terrorists, the same damn fools who demand Miranda warnings...

MOGADISHU, Somalia — As a Spanish warship looked on, a $3.3 million ransom was delivered by boat Tuesday and Somali pirates freed a Spanish trawler and its 36 crew members. Spain's prime minister did little to deny paying off the hijackers — one reason the lucrative attacks are on the rise. "The government did what it had to do," Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero told a news conference in Madrid. "The important thing is that the sailors will be back with us. The first obligation of a country, of the government of a state, is to save the lives...

A 24-year-old local Somali man was indicted this afternoon in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis on charges of conspiring to provide support to terrorists. Omer Abdi Mohamed, an unemployed employment counselor and father of a two-month-old boy, also was indicted on charges of conspiracy to "kill, kidnap, maim or injure" people in foreign countries. Mohamed, of Minneapolis, is the sixth Somali man with local ties to be charged in connection with a two-year-old federal counterrorism investigation aimed at finding out who recruited up to 20 local men of Somali descent to return to their homeland and train and fight with...

ABOARD USS CHOSIN AT SEA, Nov. 19, 2009 – USS Chosin, home-ported in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, has assumed the role as flagship for the counter-piracy efforts of Combined Task Force 151 after arriving in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations as part of a regularly scheduled deployment. "We're extremely well equipped to support this mission," said Navy Capt. Timothy Smith, the ship’s commanding officer. "An Aegis-class cruiser has an awful lot of capabilities to search and identify, perform command and control operations, collect intelligence and maintain communications related to counter piracy." Early in the deployment, the Chosin crew sighted...

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MANAMA, Bahrain, Nov. 18, 2009 – The U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama’s security team repelled an attack from suspected pirates this morning 560 nautical miles off the northeastern coast of Somalia, U.S. Naval Forces Central Command officials reported. Four suspected pirates in a skiff came within 300 yards of the Maersk Alabama and used small-arms weapons in an attempt to board the ship. The ship’s security team responded with evasive maneuvers, long-range acoustic devices and small-arms fire, causing the suspected pirates to break off their attack. The acoustic devices emit a high-pitched sound that can be painful to human ears. "Due to...

About an hour ago, the Associated Press reported that the crew of the US-flagged merchant vessel Maersk Alabama repelled a pirate attack off the coast of Somalia.  This is the same ship that was boarded by pirates last April.  At that time, the captain of the ship was taken hostage and was held by pirates in a lifeboat for five days.  The incident ended when US Navy SEAL snipers simultaneously killed all three pirates aboard the lifeboat in a nighttime action.  This time, the pirates never got aboard the ship. What was the difference?  Guns.As the AP report makes abundantly clear,...

Monday, November 16, 2009 Islamic Extremists Kill Somali Church Leader Thirteenth Christian Assassinated This Year By Jeremy Reynalds Correspondent for ASSIST News Service WASHINGTON, D.C. (ANS) -- A human rights group has learned that members of al-Shabab (a Somali Islamic extremist group) have killed yet another leader of an underground church in the Somalia capital of Mogadishu. Washington-based International Christian Concern (ICC), reported that on Oct. 10, Pastor Ali Hussein Weheliye was returning home from a worship service when two masked members of al-Shabab ambushed and shot him. He was later taken to Darful Shifa Hospital where he died of...

New Zealand, Denmark, Singapore, Sweden and Switzerland are among the top five least corrupt nations, according to a new survey released by Transparency International. Canada is in the top ten. Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Sudan are the most corrupt. Canada ranks amongst the top ten least corrupt countries in the world while conflict-torn states such as Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan and Iraq are labelled as nations rife with bribery and corruption, according to a new 2009 corruption perception index revealed Tuesday by Transparency International. New Zealand rates as the least corrupt nation followed by Denmark, Singapore and Sweden. Others on the...

Transparency International released its annual Corruption Perceptions Index on Tuesday, saying war-ravaged Somalia remains the world's most corrupt country, followed by Afghanistan.Transparency International's rankings are based on how corrupt a country's government is perceived to be by experts and international institutions like the World Bank and the World Economic Forum.

A chemical tanker with a crew of 28 North Koreans has been hijacked by pirates near Somalia, the European Union's naval force says. The MV Theresa VIII, a Singaporean-operated tanker, was taken on Monday in the south Somali Basin, 180 nautical miles north west of the Seychelles. The vessel had been heading for the Kenyan port city of Mombasa, but was diverted north, the naval force said. The EU naval force (Navfor) operates in the region to protect shipping. Somali pirates, using "mother ships" to launch their small-boat attacks on vessels, have extended their range to an area off the...

SNIPPET: "Counterterrorism officials are investigating a group of youths who allegedly left Canada for East Africa two weeks ago, amid concerns they may have gone to join the Somali militant group Al-Shabab. Two sources familiar with the case said investigators had been canvassing Toronto's large Somali-Canadian community for information about as many as five men who departed Canada together in early November. They are believed to have flown to Kenya, the sources said. Kenya borders the region of southern Somalia controlled by Al-Shabab, an Islamist militia aligned with al-Qaeda and sometimes likened to the Taliban." SNIPPET: ""Radicalization within the U.S....

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This article actually identifies the "terrorists" as "Islamic extremists," but only does so in the seventh paragraph. Now, why does this matter? Why should it be mentioned at all? Because the more we remain in denial about the source and nature of the problem, the harder it will be to solve. "Alleged Somali recruiter arrested, linked to Minnesota," by James Walsh and Richard Meryhew for the Star Tribune, November 11 A 43-year-old Somali man from Minneapolis was arrested this week in the Netherlands for allegedly financing the recruitment of up to 20 young Somali men from Minnesota to train and...

Swedish taxpayers helped fund a youth recreation centre in the north Stockholm suburb of Rinkeby which served as a recruiting station for the Somalia-based Islamist group al-Shabaab. More than ten young people from the predominantly immigrant neighbourhood who spoke with Sveriges Radio (SR), said that the recruitment drive was led by a youth leader at the Kreativitetshuset recreation centre. The recreation centre was started by a mosque and received a total of 480,000 kronor ($70,400) from the Stockholm city sports and recreation administration over four years before closing down in 2008. "It's horrible. There was no suggestion of this when...

MOGADISHU, Somalia – Gunmen have killed a top Somali judge who had sentenced many pirates and human traffickers to long jail terms, the security minister for northern Somalia said Thursday. Mohamed Said Samatar said three men were arrested Thursday over the killing of High Court Judge Mohamed Abdi Aware. In addition to jailing suspected pirates, Aware also recently jailed four members of Somalia's Islamic insurgency. Eyewitness Mohamud Dahir said masked men with pistols shot the judge in the head and chest several times as he left a mosque Wednesday evening in the port city of Bossaso. "These gangs hate him...

SNIPPET: "An al Qaeda leader wanted by the US for a string of deadly attacks has been named the new leader of terror group's network in East Africa. Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, one of several al Qaeda leaders charged with carrying out the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, was appointed the leader of al Qaeda in the Horn of Africa. Fazul was "inaugurated" during an open ceremony in the southern city of Kismayo, according to a translation received by The Long War Journal of an article posted Waaga Cusub, a website operated by the Hawiye clan,...

A 43-year-old Somali man from Minneapolis was arrested this week in the Netherlands for allegedly financing the recruitment of up to 20 young Somali men from Minnesota to train and fight with terrorists in their homeland. The arrest appears to be the most significant development yet in one of the most far-reaching counterterrorism investigations since 9/11. The identity of the man, who was arrested Sunday at an asylum-seeker's center 45 miles northeast of Amsterdam, was not released. But Special Agent E.K. Wilson of the Minneapolis FBI office confirmed Tuesday that the man was arrested in connection with the ongoing counterterrorism...

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...