Posted on 06/14/2004 2:40:00 PM PDT by swilhelm73
WASHINGTON June 14, 2004 — A Somali native living in Ohio has been charged with plotting with other al-Qaida operatives to blow up a Columbus-area shopping mall, according to an indictment unsealed Monday. The four-count indictment, returned by a grand jury in Columbus, Ohio, charges that Nuradin Abdi, 32, conspired with admitted al-Qaida member Iyman Faris and others to detonate a bomb at the unidentified shopping mall after he obtained military-style training in Ethiopia.
Attorney General John Ashcroft announced the indictment at a Justice Department news conference and used the occasion to warn anew of al-Qaida's threat. "Current credible intelligence indicates that al-Qaida wants to hit the United States, to hit the United States hard," he said.
Abdi is also charged with fraud and misuse of documents by claiming that he had been granted valid asylum status in the United States. In fact, prosecutors say, he obtained that refugee document under false pretenses.
There also is one count each of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, in this case al-Qaida.
The charges against Abdi, who has been in custody since November on immigration-related violations, were handed up by the grand jury last Thursday.
A government motion seeking to keep Abdi in detention says he returned to the United States from Africa in March 2000 and was met at the airport in Columbus by Faris. Those two and other unidentified coconspirators were involved in the alleged shopping mall plot, prosecutors say.
One of the immigration charges contends that Abdi concealed his true destination when he applied on April 27, 1999, for a U.S. travel document. He said he was going to Germany and Saudi Arabia to visit Mecca and relatives.
In fact, "as the defendant well knew, he planned to travel to Ogaden, Ethiopia, for the purpose of obtaining military-style training in preparation for violent Jihad," the indictment says.
The training allegedly included use of guns, bombs and guerrilla warfare.
Faris is serving a 20-year federal sentence after pleading guilty last June to providing material support to al-Qaida. Faris, an Ohio-based truck driver originally from Kashmir, admitted plotting to sever the cables supporting the Brooklyn Bridge in New York and to derail trains in New York or Washington.
Neither of those plots came to fruition.
Faris had received instructions from top al-Qaida leader Khalid Shaikh Mohammed for what might have been a second wave of attacks to follow those of Sept. 11, 2001, investigators say. Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the hijackings, is in U.S. custody at an undisclosed overseas location.
Watch Ohio swing back into the solid Bush state column.
I'm in the area, and they had an angry mob of his family on the news saying he did nothing wrong, he is being beaten in prison, and they have not been allowed to see him... augh... didn't the we hear the same cr@p with the buffalo terror cell?
At least it was stopped!
Here's his bro
Brother: Somali National Hated Terrorists
Abdi Charged In Shopping Mall Plot
POSTED: 5:01 pm EDT June 14, 2004
UPDATED: 5:03 pm EDT June 14, 2004
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- A Somali national charged with plotting to blow up a shopping mall loved the freedom he found in the United States and never spoke badly against the country, his brother said Monday.
"He really hated terrorists," Mohamed AbdiKarani, 17, told The Associated Press. "You know how (President) Bush hates terrorists? I think he hates them more."
His brother, Nuradin Abdi, has son and daughter who are toddlers, and his wife is eight months pregnant, AbdiKarani and a cousin said.
"He loved it here. He never had as much freedom," AbdiKarani said. "He said it's good to raise his kids here."
A four-count indictment returned by a Columbus grand jury charges that Abdi (pictured, left), 32, conspired with admitted al-Qaida member Iyman Faris and others to detonate a bomb at the unidentified Columbus-area shopping mall after he obtained military-style training in Ethiopia.
Faris, a Pakistani native who moved to Columbus in the 1990s, was accused of plotting to cut through the cables that support New York's Brooklyn Bridge. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison last year.
Abdi was friends with Faris (pictured, right) through the mosque they attended and his whole family was surprised about Faris' arrest, AbdiKarani said.
"Every person he's seen, he made them a friend right away," he said of his brother. "He didn't know what Iyman was up to."
The mosque was closed between prayer services Monday afternoon.
AbdiKarani came to the United State about two months before his brother about nine years ago, he said. They stayed about four months with family in Virginia before seeking better job opportunities and lower housing costs in Columbus.
He doesn't know of his brother traveling overseas. He says his brother -- named for his grandfather and called "Nur" for short -- visited Ethiopia before coming to the U.S.
AbdiKarani said his and Abdi's mother was staying with Abdi's wife, another Somalian immigrant who met Abdi here. Their children are U.S. citizens, he said.
"A lot of people are trying to help her out," the brother said.
Abdi is listed by the state as a co-owner of Cell Station, a cell phone business in a strip mall with several Somali-owned businesses on the city's north side. The store's telephone number was disconnected Monday and its door was open, but no one was inside. Clerks at neighboring businesses said the other co-owner had gone to pick up some orders.
Abdi followed the same routine daily, waking up to pray, going to the gym, going to the mosque, working and spending time with family, said AbdiKarani, saying he hadn't seen his brother much since he moved from the far west side to the north side.
Jamilla Hassan, 39, a cousin who has lived near Abdi's family for three years, said she hopes it's all a "mistake" and a "nightmare."
Abdi was like any immigrant who escaped the clan-based war in Somalia looking for a better life, Hassan said.
"He was another good American," she said.
"Every time a Somalian man is going to be grabbed ... We're better off living in the war. At least nobody is going to grab you and accuse you of anything."
Copyright 2004 by nbc4columbus.com
Good definition of a "sleeper"
Somalia ... let me see. As I recall, recently our State Department encouraged tens of thousands of Somali "refugees" to enter the US, and inflicted them upon towns like Lewiston, Maine, and now St. Louis and others. So who was responsible for this upstanding immigrant being in the country?
I hope your MIL is OK.
I have met some Somalis, mostly children, and everything seemed on the up and up, but you never know. I am upset that immediately the news tries their damnest to say his is totally innocent and make it look like a conspiracy.
We live out in Licking County, I wouldn't want to be in the city.
What happened to immigrants taking pride in their new country? My grandfather immigrated with his family from Greece as a young boy. With WWII, he signed up to serve as soon as he was of age, like a lot of other young men. When my mom was a teenager and brought home pin protesting vietnam that her teacher had given her, he spanked her (she was 16) and told her that if she had no sense of pride for her country and those fighting for freedom around the world, she could go live in vietnam. When I was growing up, he would tell us every fourth of July his recollection of the trip to the US (he was only about 4 or 5) and how lucky we are to have been born here.
Of course, now with so many american born liberals spewing hate speech about our country when they are citizens... what is there to stop anyone else from doing the same...
I have often wondered the same thing. Why is there such a lack of pride? It breaks my heart. I can only hope that we raise Hannah with pride for her country. And that she stays true to it. I come from a liberal family, and I am the black sheep. Thats alright by me however. What your Grandfather did and what he believed in is why I have such pride in this country. We truly are a nation of optimists. You must be very proud. God Bless-
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