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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

“LET ME underscore the importance of the United States continuing to lead in the Middle East, North Africa and around the world,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday in testimony to Congress. “When America is absent, especially from unstable environments, there are consequences. Extremism takes root, our interests suffer and our security at home is threatened.” The outgoing secretary’s statements were particularly striking when compared with President Obama’s inaugural address Monday, which promised to end “a decade of war” in favor of nation-building at home, and with the White House’s current approach to Mali. ...White House policymakers argue...

Oceanic sediment cores offer researchers a valuable archive of Earth's climate history. Ancient pollen, plankton, dust, and other clues collected from seafloors provide the bulk of what scientists know about global changes to the planet's ecosystems over time. In 2011, Feakins devised a novel way of harnessing this technology to test one of the oldest questions of human evolution: Did our ancestors actually climb down from trees because of expanding savannas in Africa? By poring over cores from the seas off East Africa, she would be able to peel back layers of ancient, windblown carbon isotopes associated with grasslands, settling...

The 2011 Somali famine killed an estimated 260,000 people, half of them age 5 and under, according to a new report to be published this week that more than doubles previous death toll estimates, officials told The Associated Press. The aid community believes that tens of thousands of people died needlessly because the international community was slow to respond to early signs of approaching hunger in East Africa in late 2010 and early 2011. The toll was also exacerbated by extremist militants from al-Shabab who banned food aid deliveries to the areas of south-central Somalia that they controlled. Quicker action...

Islamist militants in Somalia have killed the widow of a Christian who was slain for his faith in December, leaving the couple’s five children orphaned, sources said. Islamic extremist Al Shabaab rebels shot 42-year-old Fartun Omar to death on April 13 in Buulodbarde, 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Beledweyne, according to Abdi Aziz Suleiman of Radio Shebelle in Beledweyne. The extremists had been searching for her for several months, as they knew that she was a secret Christian like her late husband, Mursal Isse Siad, sources said. Siad had been receiving death threats for leaving Islam. ... “A week before...

A series of Twitter gloats today raised questions about the possible involvement of Somali terror group Al-Shabaab in the Boston Marathon bombing. No person or group has yet directly taken responsibility for the attack that killed three and wounded 176, 17 of those critically. The FBI issued a be-on-the-lookout for a dark-skinned or black man in dark clothes, perhaps with a foreign accent, who tried to enter a restricted area moments before the first blast. Authorities were also questioning a Saudi national here on a student visa and searched an apartment in Revere, Mass., last night. Terror groups have shown...

President Obama decided this week that the Muslim Brotherhood-linked regime ruling parts of Somalia out of the capital city Mogadishu is eligible to receive U.S. military aid and weapons. Obama Paves Way to Arm Muslim Brotherhood-linked Regime in Somalia The New American 12 April 2013 President Obama decided this week that the Muslim Brotherhood-linked regime ruling parts of Somalia out of the capital city Mogadishu is eligible to receive U.S. military aid and weapons, sending a memo to Secretary of State John Kerry announcing the new finding and laying the ground work for even more foreign entanglements in Africa....

Mohamed has made the list of most popular baby boy names in Minnesota, according to the Social Security Administration (SSA).Mohamed was the 98th most popular boy's name in 2011 in the state. The SSA says Minnesota parents named 73 boys after the founder of Islam in that year.This is the first time the name has appeared on the list the SSA releases each year. Are you surprised Mohamed is now one of the 100 most popular boys names? Are you surprised it wasn't on the top 100 list prior to 2011? Mohamed's place on the list is not surprising considering...

Egyptian maritime authorities have seized a ship with a crew of 14 and a cargo of 105 crates of unspecified weapons and ammunition, which belonged to an African security company, Egyptian security officials told AFP. The military's spokesman Colonel Ahmed Mohamed Ali said on his Facebook page the ship belonged to a company that secures maritime routes in the Red Sea, a haven of Somalia-based pirates. "The weapons and ammunition on this ship are related to its work and mission to secure commercial vessels," he said. But Israel's Channel 10 television contradicted the Egyptian military's version, reporting that the boat...

Omar Hammami, the most prominent American jihadi left alive, probably should be running. When Hammami came to Somalia for jihad in 2006, he never anticipated that al-Qaida’s local affiliate would pledge to kill its former propaganda asset. And last month, the U.S. government put a $5 million bounty on the head of the 28-year-old Alabama native. These could be the last moments of Hammami’s life. [snip] Omar Hammami grew up in the deep south, in a town called Daphne, near Mobile. Born in 1984 to a Syrian Muslim immigrant father and a white Protestant mother, he was raised as a...

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...

Republicans are blasting the Obama administration for detaining a Somali terror suspect for two months aboard a U.S. warship before flying him to New York over the July Fourth holiday to face charges in a civilian trial. Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame, who has ties to the Al Qaeda-linked group al-Shabaab, was captured April 19 in the Horn of Africa region, possibly in Yemen. At his arraignment in New York Tuesday, he pleaded not guilty to the nine charges he's been indicted on by a federal grand jury, including providing material support to a terrorist organization. "The Obama administration won't detain terrorists...

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...

The State Department says the rewards are $5 million each for al-Shabab members Omar Shafik Hammami and Jehad Mostafa. It says the 28-year-old Hammami is a resident of Daphne, Ala., who moved to Somalia in 2006. He has served as a propagandist for the al-Qaida-affiliated organization, attracting English-speaking youth with rap songs and video statements, and as a military commander. The department says Mostafa lived in San Diego before moving to Somalia in 2005. He commands foreign fighters for al-Shabab, which has fought for years for control over Somalia.

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...

New light is being shed on the 2001 anthrax attacks in a fascinating open letter to Ayman al Zawahiri of al Qaeda, written by a jihadi living in London. Numan Bin Uthman, a former leader of an armed Islamic group in Libya, provides yet more evidence that the global Islamic jihad movement is losing its resolve.  But the letter contains a startling admission. Uthman tells us of a conversation he had with al Qaeda leaders before the 9/11 attacks in which he urged them not to use WMD. From AKI News: Uthman also said that he had taken part in...

President Barack Obama is coming to Minneapolis on Monday, Feb. 4, to advance his proposals to reduce gun violence, which is a little bit like taking a boat out into the middle of the ocean to discuss the risk of fire in Joshua Tree National Park. Why doesn't he go to Chicago, where there is gun violence? And then, once in Chicago, why wouldn't he discuss that city's problem of gang violence? In fact, so long as he has the itch to take his bully pulpit on the road, Chicago is the natural, ultimate stop. Why, it is ground zero....

President Obama informed Congress Sunday evening that U.S. forces were present in Somalia on Friday for a French raid to rescue a hostage from al-Shabaab. The attempt to rescue the intelligence officer who had been held by the terrorist group for three years went very wrong, though. One French commando was killed in the operation and another is missing. Al-Shabaab claimed that the commando is now their hostage. And French army consultant Denis Allex, the pseudonym for the intelligence officer, is presumed dead.

Gen. Carter Ham is head of the U.S. African command. An Army brigade from Fort Riley, Kan., will begin helping train African militaries beat back a growing terrorist threat posed by al-Qaida. An Army brigade from Fort Riley, Kan., some 4,000, soldiers, will begin helping to train African militaries. The idea is to help African troops beat back a growing terrorist threat posed by al-Qaida. The American troops will head over in small teams over the course of the next year. The Dagger Brigade returned to Kansas last year from a deployment to Iraq, where it trained and advised that...

“When it was my turn, they took me blindfolded,” the thief said. “Suddenly I felt a pain in my right hand that was out of this world. My hand had just been chopped off.” This is Gao, once the seat of an empire, and then a glorified village, and now a city the size of Scranton under the boot of its Islamist conquerors. Gao has become a place where thieves have their hands cut off, where women are forced to wear the stifling Hijab in 113 degree heat or be lashed and where unmarried couples are stoned to death. Borders...

PORTLAND, Ore. – For more than two years, the only image the public has had of the man accused of plotting to detonate an 1,800-pound bomb at a Portland Christmas tree-lighting ceremony is this: A sullen-faced, sunken-eyed terrorism suspect in a mug shot taken just hours after his arrest.

The paid informant who helped orchestrate the FBI sting that resulted in the arrest of five anarchists for allegedly plotting to blow up an Ohio bridge is a convicted felon who was arrested on bad check and theft charges in the midst of his cooperation with federal investigators, The Smoking Gun has learned.Shaquille Azir, 39, was named in a pair of felony indictments filed in January in Cuyahoga County, according to court records. Azir, who TSG has identified as the informant in the federal bombing case, is accused in the indictments of passing bad checks on July 25, 2011 and...

Mr. Khan and Mr. Day said several people who worship at the mosque said the FBI had knocked on their doors late at night on the day of Mr. Mohamud’s arrest, but that none agreed to speak to agents. “People were finding cards in the doors that said FBI,” Mr. Day said. The mosque, the largest in Portland, has been the center of controversy before. In 2002, the mosque’s imam, Sheik Mohamed Abdirahman Kariye, who — like Mr. Mohamud — is a naturalized American citizen from Somalia, was arrested at Portland International Airport. Prosecutors subsequently said that trace elements of...

Mohamed Osman Mohamud: Misunderstander of Islam He yelled "Allahu akbar" and tried to kick agents as they swooped in to arrest him. DoJ press release here. "Feds Arrest Somali-Born Teen in Car Bomb Plot," from the Associated Press, November 27 (thanks to Markus): PORTLAND, Ore. -- A Somali-born teenager plotted to carry out a car bomb attack at a crowded Christmas tree lighting ceremony in downtown Portland on Friday, but the bomb turned out to be a dud supplied by undercover agents as part of a sting, federal prosecutors said. Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, was arrested at 5:40 p.m. just...

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Federal agents in a sting operation arrested a Somali-born teenager just as he tried blowing up a van he believed was loaded with explosives at a crowded Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland, authorities said. The bomb was an elaborate fake supplied by the agents and the public was never in danger, authorities said. Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, was arrested at 5:40 p.m. Friday just after he dialed a cell phone that he thought would set off the blast but instead brought federal agents and police swooping down on him. Yelling "Allahu Akbar!" — Arabic for...

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...

Is it actually possible that, as you read this, the United States Navy has only one supercarrier battle group at sea? Read on - and be amazed. Look no farther than these two news items, both from today's Sunday Times of London, to see the effect of two decades of shrinkage in the size of the United States Navy and the retreat of the Royal Navy from the high seas: • For the first time in two centuries, British businessmen and others have formed a private navy to protect shipping off the pirate-ridden coast of Somali on the Horn of...

President François Hollande said on Thursday that Islamist groups holding French hostages in Africa were not trustworthy and should not be taken seriously after Al-Qaeda accused Paris of blocking negotiations for their release. There are a total of nine French hostages on the continent. On Tuesday the Al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) said France was snubbing talks proposed by the group to free four French citizens abducted in Niger in September 2010. "The less one speaks, the better one can work," Hollande told journalists during a visit to Rungis, a giant wholesale food market just outside Paris. "There have been...

Two unidentified masked men shot Mursal Isse Siad, 55, outside his home in Beledweyne, 206 miles (332 kilometers) north of Mogadishu, for leaving Islam, Muslim and Christian sources told Morning Star News. The assailants fled immediately after the murder. Siad’s oldest daughter (name withheld), 15, said her father was killed “because he failed to attend the mosque for prayers and used to pray at home. He used to share with us about Jesus.” She said that he had received messages on his mobile phone stating, “We know what you are doing, and you must stop, otherwise you risk your life.”...

The Obama administration’s crackdown on leaks to the press has snared a high-profile conviction of an FBI linguist, who was sentenced to 20 months in prison Monday after pleading guilty to giving classified information to a blogger. The sentence for Shamai Leibowitz is likely to become the longest ever served by a government employee accused of passing national security secrets to a member of the media. His case represents only the third known conviction in U.S. history for a government official or contractor providing classified information to the press. And it reflects a surprising development: President Barack Obama’s Justice Department...

Al-Shabaab, the Somali branch of al Qaeda, ousted American jihadi Abu Mansour al-Amriki from the group after he posted online video messages contrary to the terrorist organization's teachings, CNN reported. Al-Amriki, who was born Omar Hammami in a suburb of Mobile, Alabama, was, for a period of time, a key recruiter for the group, attracting Americans of Somali heritage to the African country to fight for the terrorist group. In March, however, al-Amriki posted a video saying he felt like he was at risk. "I feel that my life may be endangered by Harakat Shabaab al-Mujahideen due to some differences...

This Muslima will feel right at home in prison, where so many of our nation's most enthusiastic jihadists converted and got the Islamic fever for annihilation and mass murder. The prisons are hotbeds of pure Islam (authentic Islam). San Diego: Muslim woman gets eight years of prison dawah for aiding jihad terror group thanks to Jihadwatch "Yusuf laughingly said she hoped another terrorist strike like the Sept. 11 attack occurs in America: 'Oh! It will be happening again. Trust me, more this time it will be double, triple their deaths.'" Lovely woman. "Somali woman sentenced to eight years for helping...

One of the themes we’ve emphasized on American Rattlesnake this year is the damage inflicted upon American society by ill-conceived policies of refugee resettlement carried out by the federal government. Unlike past generations of refugees who came here from nations behind the Iron Curtain, Cuba, or other Communist states, the ones transplanted to the United States now are not educated, white collar elites or aspiring middle class professionals who have been dispossessed of their property and wealth by tyrannical despots. Unlike the much-maligned Polish plumbers who have migrated to the United Kingdom in order to increase their earnings before returning...

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...

Boko Haram’s violent jihad against Christians in Nigeria pushed the West African country into seventh place in annual rankings of countries impacted by terrorism, lending weight to calls for the State Department to reconsider its decision not to designate the group as a “foreign terrorist organization.” Nigeria’s ranking in the latest Global Terrorism Index, released this week, marked a shift from 12th place a year earlier, from 16th place in 2008, and from 30th place in 2005. The top six countries this year are Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Yemen and Somalia. … Most recently, ten Christians were reported to have...

NOTE The following text is a quote: Superseding Indictment Charges Two Men with Conspiring to Provide Material Support to a Designated Foreign Terrorist Organization BOSTON, MA—Two men were charged today in a superseding indictment with one count each of conspiring to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization. United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz and Warren T. Bamford, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation - Boston Field Division, announced today that TAREK MEHANNA, 27, of Sudbury, Massachusetts, and AHMAD ABOUSAMRA, 28, who currently resides in Syria, were charged in a superseding indictment with one...

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Fox military analyst Col. David Hunt checked in with us again after the revelation that there were multiple listening posts which heard the cries for help from the US Embassy in Libya, and none of them did anything.

Units of the National Army assume control of Las qorayPuntland militias are no longer terrorising residents of eastern sanaag. Residents of Las Qoray town in the East of Sanaag region after the national army took full control of following the eviction of Puntland militias from the area. According to the Las Qoray mayor Mohamed Hayan Arshe area residents are now moving freely and without fear since the army assumed full control once the terrorist militias funded by Puntland fled with their tails coiled in shame and fright. Mayor Arshe informs that his local council which is earnestly engaged in tax...

Young American men continue to slip through a terrorist recruiting pipeline from the homeland to join the ranks of jihadists half a world away in East Africa, with two going as recently as three months ago, according to federal officials. The FBI confirmed a report by Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) that in July two young men disappeared from their neighborhoods in Minneapolis and are believed to have traveled to Somalia to join al-Shabaab, the embattled al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist group. Under "Operation Rhino," for years the FBI has been investigating what has been described as a recruiting pipeline from the Twin...

A young woman was stoned to death Thursday in Somalia after being convicted of engaging in out-of-marriage sex, reports say. Residents of Jamama town, 425km south of Mogadishu in Lower Juba region, said that militants loyal to Al-Shabaab carried out the stoning at the town’s main square in late afternoon. “Many residents were called to attend the execution of the punishment,” a resident who requested anonymity for own safety told Kulmiye, an independent broadcaster in Mogadishu. He added that Al-Shabaab officials in the town witnessed the stoning. “The woman admitted having out-of-marriage sex,” said an Islamist official who talked to...

Two volunteer poll workers at an Ohio voting station told Human Events that they observed van loads of Ohio residents born in Somalia — the state is home to the second-largest Somali population in the United States — being driven to the voting station and guided by Democratic interpreters on the voting process. No Republican interpreters were present, according to these volunteers.

U.S. convicts "Prince of Marbella" of arms deal Thu Nov 20, 2008 1:17pm EST By Edith Honan NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. federal jury convicted a Syrian arms dealer and a co-defendant on Thursday of conspiring to sell $1 million in weapons...Monzer al-Kassar, 62, a longtime resident of Spain known as the "Prince of Marbella" for his lifestyle in the glitzy seaside town... Kassar has been selling weapons since the 1970s to the Palestinian Liberation Front and clients in Nicaragua, Bosnia, Croatia, Iran, Iraq and Somalia. In 1995, Kassar was tried and acquitted of supplying arms that were used...

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...

Historically a city of French Canadian immigrants, Lewiston, Maine is now also home to some 6,000 Somalis, including shop owner and father of five Mohamed Heban, who moved to Lewiston in 2002. But in a recent BBC documentary, Lewiston's mayor, Boston native Bob Macdonald, sounded less than welcoming. "When you come here, you accept our culture and leave your culture at the door," he said in the documentary...

It seemed like a simple idea: In the chaos that is Somalia, create a sophisticated, highly trained fighting force that could finally defeat the pirates terrorizing the shipping lanes off the Somali coast. But the creation of the Puntland Maritime Police Force was anything but simple. It involved dozens of South African mercenaries and the shadowy security firm that employed them, millions of dollars in secret payments by the United Arab Emirates, a former clandestine officer with the Central Intelligence Agency, and Erik Prince, the billionaire former head of Blackwater Worldwide who was residing at the time in the emirates....

Small teams of special operations forces arrived at American embassies throughout North Africa in the months before militants launched the fiery attack that killed the U.S. ambassador in Libya. The soldiers' mission: Set up a network that could quickly strike a terrorist target or rescue a hostage. But the teams had yet to do much counterterrorism work in Libya, though the White House signed off a year ago on the plan to build the new military task force in the region and the advance teams had been there for six months, according to three U.S. counterterror officials and a former...

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...

Kenyan military planners duped Al-Shabaab into believing that a land invasion of their last remaining bastion of Kismayu was imminent before making an amphibious landing from the sea. While Al-Shabaab planned its defences based on that assumption, the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF), part of the African Union Mission in Somalia (Amisom) in the Horn of Africa country, was training at sea. “As the KAF (Kenya Air Force) engaged in aerial attacks the other forces were moving in by sea, from where they were to disembark. Essentially, it was intended to divert attention, especially from the Al-Shabaab. That’s why you (the...