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The US reportedly targeted Ahmed Abdi Godane in a military strike on Somalia overnight, but the Pentagon has kept a tight seal on the operation other than to acknowledge that one took place. Godane runs al-Shabaab, the Somalian radical Islamist terror network that took credit for the massacre in a Kenyan mall a year ago, and Godane is widely believed to have run that operation: Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon’s press secretary, said in a statement late Monday only that “we are assessing the results of the operation and will provide additional information as and when appropriate.” Godane...

U.S. military forces attacked the extremist al-Shabab network in Somalia Monday, the Pentagon said, and a witness described ground-shaking explosions in a strike that reportedly targeted the group’s leader. Al-Shabab had attacked the upscale Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya, killing at least 67 people a year ago this month and the U.S. had targeted planners of the bloody assault. There was no immediate comment from al-Shabab and U.S. commanders were waiting to determine the attack’s outcome. “U.S. military forces conducted an operation in Somalia today against the al-Shabaab network. We are assessing the results of the operation and will provide...

Breaking News U.S. Military Conducts Operation In Somalia By Barbara Starr September 1, 2014 (CNN) -- U.S. military forces conducted an operation Monday against the Al-Shabaab network in Somalia, Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby said. "We are assessing the results of the operation and will provide additional information as and when appropriate," he said.

Minnesotans? Or “Britons.” Or “Norwegians.” Call them what they call themselves: Muslim members of the ummah: As many as 15 Somali-American men have left their homes in Minnesota in recent months to travel to the Middle East and join up with ISIS, the jihadist army at war with Syria and Iraq, according to Minnesota Public Radio. The fighters appear to have made the decision to go fight with Islamic State of Iraq and Syria/Levant while the terror group was fighting to overthrow Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, but some may now be in Iraq, where the marauding group is seeking to...

A young Calgary man who is believed to have been killed in Iraq fighting for ISIS was “dead inside” long ago, says his former best friend. Social media reports on Friday said Farah Mohamed Shirdon, a 21-year-old Somali-Canadian, had died overseas. It’s unclear when he joined the terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham but in an ISIS video that surfaced four months ago, Mr. Shirdon can be seen burning his Canadian passport and threatening Canada and the United States. ... On a Twitter account believed to belong to Mr. Shirdon, a tweet from June read, “Beheading Shias is...

1,200 migrants – mainly from Eritrea, Sudan and Afghanistan, with groups from Somalia, Pakistan and Chad – are now camped out in Calais' forests, hoping one day to cross the Channel to Britain.(VIDEO-AT-LINK) In his 20 years as a lorry driver, Sean Baker, a former soldier, thought he had seen it all. But nothing, he said, compares to the chaos in Calais at the moment. "Just this morning I was filling up my truck with fuel and two migrants jumped in," he said. "I shouted at them and they hopped out. It's mayhem. It happens every hour. "I had one...

(Please Make Note Of The WARNING not everyone can bear to view this video) The brutality of ISIS in Iraq and Syria has been well documented – even al Qaeda warns ISIS not to be “too extreme.” But the horrors these monsters invent are terrifyingly new each day, and the latest example is the stuff of horror movies. Is our planet entering a new day where a large portion of our population is cloaked behind an “Iron Curtain” of Islamic barbarism? How can life continue “normally” in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Pakistan, Nigeria, Somalia, Egypt, Lebanon, Gaza and the West...

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. expressed “extreme, extreme concern” on Sunday over reports that bomb makers from Yemen responsible for the 2009 underwear-bomb plot are now in Syria cooperating with foreign militants there, possibly to develop new, nearly undetectable explosive devices. Asked on Sunday whether that threat was a “clear and present danger,” Mr. Holder responded: “I think it is. In some ways, it’s more frightening than anything I think I’ve seen as attorney general.”

US military admits secret presence in Somalia since 2007 US troops operating in Somalia have been mainly Green Beret Special Forces, who specialize in training and advising local armies. And now that secret is revealed, what about ‘sensitivities’? WASHINGTON - The US military has secretly maintained forces in Somalia since 2007, despite earlier public statements claiming it had no presence in the country until last October, defense officials said Thursday. The United States has deployed up to 120 troops in the African nation and hopes to bolster its security ties to Somalia's government as it battles Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab militants, a...

Islamic fundamentalists abducted the freelance reporter in August 2008, and she was released 460 days later. Just months after surviving the ordeal, she established a non-profit to provide education to girls in Somalia. "The fact that they know about the work I'm doing now," she said. "That I have chosen compassion, that they could see that they didn't break me — that's the best justice I could have." A Hollywood production company announced last week that it bought the rights to Lindhout's bestselling memoir, "A House in the Sky."

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — One of the oldest Catholic churches in St. Paul had to close down because of a dwindling congregation, but it's been given new life as an Islamic community center. The Church of St. John parish, built in 1886, closed in 2013. It reopened Friday as the Darul-Uloom Islamic Center, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported (http://bit.ly/1z0o5In ). "There are a lot of East Africans in the area, and we want to give them a place to worship, a place to be educated, a community space," center spokesman Feisal M. Elmi said. The former church held...

The Russians captured the Pirates, tied them up, put them on their boats, then set them all on fire. No more pirates. Plus, probably no more Somali pirates attacking Russian ships. This video shows Russian Navy commandos on a Somalia pirate ship shortly after the ​pirates had captured a Russian oil tanker. All conversations are in Russian with a single exception of when a wounded pirate says something in English and the Russian soldier says "This is not a fishing boat." All conversations between the commandos are in Russian. If you don't understand Russian, the pictures ​speak for themselves. The...

A Massachusetts mayor is calling for an end to refugee resettlement in his city, saying Somali families are putting pressure on already strained services in Springfield, a onetime industrial center where nearly a third of the population lives below the poverty line. Mayor Domenic Sarno is the latest mayor to decry refugee resettlement, joining counterparts in New Hampshire in Maine in largely rare tensions with the State Department, which helps resettle refugees in communities across America. The mayor is drawing criticism from those who say this country has a moral obligation to help the outcast and refugees who say they’re...

Extremists attacked a coastal area of Kenya for the second night in a row, killing at least nine people a day after the deaths of nearly 50, an official said Tuesday. Police spokesman Masoud Mwinyi said that al-Shabab militants attacked Majembeni village. The Somali militant group also claimed responsibility for the Sunday night attack in nearby Mpeketoni that killed 48 people. The back-to-back attacks underscore the weak security around the Lamu area, which lies just south of the Somali border. Lamu once attracted swarms of foreign visitors but its tourist sector has been suffering in recent years because of increasing...

A teenager who survived a flight to Hawaii as a stowaway in the plane's wheel well said he hopped on the closest flight that was going west in an effort to find his birth mom and can't believe he survived the journey. Yahya Abdi, 15, spoke over Google Chat to KPIX-5 in his first public comments since his improbable survival during the 5 1/2-hour flight from San Jose to Maui in April. The interview was reported on Tuesday night. Yahya, a Somali immigrant, ran away from his Santa Clara home and hopped a fence at Mineta San Jose International Airport....

A group of sailors have described their dramatic midnight escape after four years held hostage and tortured by a gang of Somali pirates. Barefoot, starving and terrified, the 11 men ran through the darkness for more than 10 kilometres, ducking behind low bushes to avoid recapture before they eventually reached safety. On Saturday night the men had broken a window in the cramped room in which they were being held, and fled. It was their last slim shot at freedom, as their captors had theatened to start torturing them again on Tuesday. “It was a do or die situation because...

Somalia could experience massive humanitarian crises against a backdrop of dwindling funds to support life-saving interventions, a senior UN relief official for Somalia said on Monday. Humanitarian coordinator for Somalia, Philippe Lazzarini, told a news conference in Nairobi that Somalia risked drifting into a humanitarian crisis due to fragile food situation, a spike in diseases and insecurity. “The humanitarian needs in Somalia remain vast based on credible assessment on the ground. An estimated two million people are grappling with food stress, malnutrition and communicable diseases,” said Lazzarini. He warned that the humanitarian crises experienced in 2011 could repeat itself in...

Security concerns have long been high in Kenya because of its proximity to Somalia and the al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group, al-Shabab that operates there. In September, four al-Shabab gunmen attacked a shopping mall in Nairobi, killing at least 67 people. The 1998 embassy bombing killed more than 200. Since the mall attack, Kenya has suffered numerous smaller bombings in Nairobi and Mombasa. Kenyan authorities, with the help of the FBI, also discovered a huge car bomb that could have caused massive damage. ... Terror attack kills 13 in Kenya as hundreds of Western tourists are evacuated under armed guard over safety...

Fox News Channel’s Megyn Kelly took the opportunity to once again have Ayan Hirsi Ali on her program to discuss sharia law since the kidnapping of hundreds of Nigerian schoolgirls by Boko Haram remains in the news. Ali, who was born in Somalia explains perfectly why the transformation from the so-called ‘peaceful’ brand of Islam into the more violent strain is as reliable as a chemical formula. It all ends the same way. As peaceful men assemble to listen to well-intentioned, peaceful Muslim preachers, evil and hatred creeps in. This happens not because these preachers start out wanting to go...

Few pay attention to the common agendas shared by Boko Haram (the terrorist group that has kidnapped over 200 Nigerian schoolgirls) and the non-profit organizations ran by the Obama family. The primary goals of both is to eradicate western education in Africa; the evidence is overwhelming. ... the foundation bearing the name of Barack’s grandmother – the Mama Sarah Obama Foundation (MSOF). In the interview, Musa confessed that the MSOF accepts western donations under faulty premises (helping orphaned children with AIDS) and then uses those funds for scholarships to send Kenyan students to extremist Wahhabist schools in Saudi Arabia. In...