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Young men vanish into Somalia, stirring fears of terrorist recruitment
latimes.com ^ | January 18, 2009 | Bob Drogin

Posted on 01/18/2009 7:27:09 PM PST by Free ThinkerNY

Reporting from Minneapolis -- Tall and lean, with a wispy mustache and shy smile, 17-year-old Burhan Hassan chalked up A's last fall as a senior at Roosevelt High School, vowing to become a doctor or lawyer.

After school and on weekends, he studied Islam at the nearby Abubakar As-Saddique mosque. He joined its youth group.

"He wanted to go to Harvard," said his uncle Osman Ahmed. "That was his dream."

Instead Hassan has gone to Somalia, the anarchic East African nation that his family fled when he was a toddler. On election day, Hassan and five other youths slipped away from their homes here, and anguished family members now say they may have joined a Taliban-style Islamic militia that U.S. authorities call a terrorist organization.

(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...


TOPICS: Front Page News; News/Current Events; US: Minnesota
KEYWORDS: alqaeda; alqaedaafrica; alqaedastrategy; globaljihad; immigration; islam; jihad; minneapolis; muslim; muslims; recruits; somalia
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1 posted on 01/18/2009 7:27:10 PM PST by Free ThinkerNY
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To: Free ThinkerNY

Now that the Ethiopian military has pulled out and the Islamists have assumed control in Mogadishu, this sort of thing is only going to increase.


2 posted on 01/18/2009 7:33:58 PM PST by squidly
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To: Free ThinkerNY

Impossible. This must be nativist propaganda. All immigrants love America (otherwise they wouldn’t come here) and are hardworking. I know all this because the Wall Street Journal told me so!


3 posted on 01/18/2009 7:34:09 PM PST by Mogwai (John McCain is Scott Farkus to Lindsey Graham's Grover Dill)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

Why do all these Somali immigrant news article emanate out of Minnesota?

How in the hell did Minnesota get to be so lucky?


4 posted on 01/18/2009 7:35:07 PM PST by A_Former_Democrat
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To: A_Former_Democrat

They were lucky enough to get sponsored by the local Lutheran churches....


5 posted on 01/18/2009 7:38:31 PM PST by ButThreeLeftsDo (FR......Monthly Donors Wanted)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

cancel their US citizenships , if shown to be participating in a foreign military forces and deport not only them but their entire families .
No more moslem immigration allowed into America . Zero.
We don’t need them , we don’t want them , and it’s insane to let any in in the first place.
Student visas too. Look want these foreign moslem students do;
Come over here and impregnate our naive and gullible women , who can think no farther than having ‘a good time’ with some ‘exotic’ man .......


6 posted on 01/18/2009 7:38:49 PM PST by LeoWindhorse
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To: Free ThinkerNY

Good, maybe he can make a million as a pirate. More should go and join him, I would be willing to help start a web site to get funds to pay for their one way plane tickets..


7 posted on 01/18/2009 7:40:31 PM PST by org.whodat (Conservatives don't vote for Bailouts for Super-Rich Bankers! Republicans do!)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

Back in BlackHawkDown days, it turned out that a USMC translator deployed there was the son of Farah Aideed! He was a reservist who was...a city bureaucrat in Long Beach, or something.

He disappeared when he was deployed over there.


8 posted on 01/18/2009 7:44:24 PM PST by gaijin
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To: gaijin

http://hotzone.yahoo.com/b/hotzone/blogs1077

see? It’s not even new..! We’re seriously playing MultiCulti catchup, here..!


Oct. 1, 2005

Son of Aideed

He’s the son of Somalia’s most infamous warlord, a naturalized American citizen and a former U.S. Marine - now a member of the Somali interim government. Will his past give America another chance in Somalia?

By Kevin Sites, Thu Sep 29, 9:13 PM ETEmail Story IM Story
MOGADISHU, Somalia - Today Hussein Mohamed Aideed will celebrate Shabna, a Somali ceremony of remembrance, at the tomb of his father. As he prepares to leave his palatial home in southern Mogadishu, he is surrounded by young men with guns.

But he is used to that.

Aideed was, after all, a U.S. Marine for nine years. He served in the Gulf War and even in Somalia in the early ‘90s during the ill-fated multinational famine relief effort, Operation Restore Hope.

“My unit had already left Somalia,” he tells me, “before the fighting began.”

The son of Somalia’s most notorious warlord and one-time American nemesis, Mohamed Farah Aideed, Hussein came to America with his mother as a political refugee when he was 14. His father, who was chief of Somali intelligence at the time, had been thrown in jail by the country’s dictator Siad Barre, who suspected Mohammed of plotting to overthrow him.

Hussein took to the U.S., settling with his family in Southern California. He made friends easily, ate ice cream, studied martial arts, went to dances and attended school. In 1987 he enlisted in the Marines and became a U.S. citizen four years later. Fellow Marines recalled him as being fun and outgoing in past profiles.

“It was natural for me to join the Marines,” he says. “Through my father I had been around the military all my life. I’m very comfortable with it.”

Hussein was tapped in 1993 for the initial phase of Operation Restore Hope, as the only Marine in the region who spoke Somali. At the time he was known as simply Hussein Farah (his grandfather’s last name).

He was open about his family connections and, with the permission of his commanding officer, even met with his father on several occasions.

After his tour with Marine Reserves ended, he took a job as an urban planning engineer in the city of West Covina, Calif. He married and was ready to settle into suburban life.

But all of that changed at the end of the summer in 1996. His father was killed in a gunbattle with forces connected to Osman Hassan Ali Atto, leader of a breakaway faction of Aideed’s own clan.

“When I was a boy,” Hussein says, “I made a promise to my father to serve the people of Somalia in whatever way I could. When he died, it was time to honor that promise.”

Hussein returned to both Somalia and the practice of using his father’s name. And just a few days after his father’s death, the Habr Gedir clan chose him to be president of the republic that his father had declared in 1995. But it was never recognized internationally.

For Hussein Farah Aideed, the transition from Californian urban planner to president of the “Somali Republic” was a trip through the rabbit hole. Now that he has emerged on the other side, he is a changed man, according to American friends.

I ask him about his divided loyalties. How did he feel when he was watching the footage of his native countrymen, from his own clan, dragging the dead body of a soldier from his adopted nation through the streets during the Battle of Mogadishu?

“It was the most difficult thing I have ever experienced in my life,” he says, “and every year I’ve worked to reconcile this part.”

But that’s much different from the rhetoric he used when he first returned to Somalia in 1996: At a gathering in a local stadium, Hussein called the Battle of Mogadishu a “gloomy day for the aggressors” and “a victorious day for the Somalis.

“Hussein also vigorously defends his father’s actions against the multinational force at the time — even though his father’s militia was responsible for holding up deliveries of famine relief supplies to starving people and sometimes robbed the shipments. Men under his command also attacked United Nations forces, killing 24 Pakistani peacekeepers — an act that prompted U.S. efforts to capture him and to put a $25,000 bounty on his head.

“My father was not responsible for those deaths,” Hussein says. “These were his men, but they acted without his orders.”

Hussein prefers to focus on the present. As Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior for the crisis-addled interim government, he sees himself as a peacemaker between the interim president, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, and the Mogadishu warlords that make up his own Cabinet.

Much of the dispute focuses on Yusuf’s decision to temporarily base the new government outside of Mogadishu, which he says is not safe. His Cabinet members are threatening war. Hussein says he’s not backing either faction and is working toward a peaceful resolution, but insiders say he’s putting his bets and his militia muscle behind the president.

Some also question how much Hussein really matters in the equation. Because of his American background he faces criticism and challenges within his own clan. He says he responds by explaining the concept of American values to fellow Somalis.

“My values in some ways are U.S. values,” he says. “A nation of immigrants in less than 200 years becomes better than Europe, better than China, better than Russia, better than Africa, better than any country. A nation who allowed people who have been abused in different countries to come together and form in Philadelphia a constitution and making the machine to survive and become a superpower.”

This fickle but enduring connection to the U.S. has some wondering whether Hussein Farah Aideed will be the man in the new government that could at the very least create a second chance, backdoor channel for future American influence in Somalia.

At the Shabna ceremony on family land, Hussein and other clansmen pay homage, singing and dancing a traditional prayer of remembrance around the white ceramic tile crypt of his late father. Afterward, the men sit on the ground under a shade tree and eat large dark chunks of camel meat and rice from communal platters with their hands.

Hussein seems circumspect. This Somali turned American Marine turned East African warlord perhaps wonders what his father would do in this situation, as both a personal and national political crisis brew simultaneously.


9 posted on 01/18/2009 7:47:49 PM PST by gaijin
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To: Free ThinkerNY

I wish they would recruit all the Emo-Goth skater kids in California those brats are annoying.


10 posted on 01/18/2009 7:48:33 PM PST by exist
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To: Free ThinkerNY
It's a good thing that bad kids aren't keen to follow through on their true life ambitions, choosing instead to commit disgusting crimes, get murdered, or even to become a terrorist. Otherwise there would be a glut of Harvard grads, veterinarians and pediatric nurses.

11 posted on 01/18/2009 7:49:27 PM PST by I see my hands (_8(|)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

There is nothing to worry about. These boys probably just returned to their ancestral home for Koran study. British moslems do it all the time.


12 posted on 01/18/2009 7:50:45 PM PST by tvdog12345
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To: Free ThinkerNY
FBI fears terror recruiters have tried to get Americans to join the Jihad from other cities such as “San Diego, Seattle, Boston.”

As Americans they would blend in easily before they show up at a mall and start machine gunning everyone. Or, perhaps part of a coordinated biological weapon's attack across the nation. If suicide terrorists released bio engineered Plague or Ebola it would probably be the end of the nation.

“Ahmed had not been on the FBI’s radar before the bombings. And his death raised fears that someone trained in Somalia might import terrorist tactics to America.

“The FBI believes that over the last two years, 12 to 20 Minnesotans have gone to Somalia.

“As a result, a joint terrorism task force led by the FBI is scrambling to determine if extremist Islamic groups are seeking recruits here in the nation's largest Somali community — as well as in San Diego, Seattle, Boston and other cities.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2167186/posts

13 posted on 01/18/2009 7:52:11 PM PST by garjog
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To: All; backhoe; piasa

Previously...

QUOTE:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2147450/posts

Somalis Leaving U.S. for Jihad
PAJAMAS MEDIA via FRONTPAGE MAGAZINE.com ^ | December 12, 2008 | Patrick Poole
Posted on December 12, 2008 3:57:22 AM PST by Cindy

Pajamas Media | Friday, December 12, 2008 The funeral for Shirwa Ahmed last week in Burnsville, Minnesota, punctuated a growing national security threat metastasizing inside the U.S. — one Homeland Security and law enforcement authorities have quickly taken note of. Ahmed, who killed himself in a suicide bombing attack in Somalia in October, is just one of up to 40 men from the Twin Cities area who have disappeared and are feared to have returned to their homeland for training with the al-Shabaab terrorist group to wage jihad. The FBI is investigating similar disappearances in other major Somali communities in Columbus, OH, Atlanta, Boston, San Diego, and Seattle. There are even reports coming from Europe, recently from Denmark, of Somali men returning home to fight with al-Shabaab and other terrorist organizations.

ABC News also reports that a Somali from Boston, Tarek Mehenna, a U.S. citizen, was arrested last month on his way to Somalia to wage jihad after being in contact with Daniel Maldonado, a Muslim convert currently in federal prison after pleading guilty to training at a Somali terror training camp after being captured in Kenya with a Somali terrorist cell.

(Excerpt) Read more at frontpagemag.com ...

#

QUOTE:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2155483/posts

Somalis in U.S. draw FBI attention
WASHINGTON TIMES ^ | nday, December 29, 2008 | Sara A. Carter
Posted on December 29, 2008 3:43:22 AM PST by Cindy

Somalis in U.S. draw FBI attention War at home seen as lure

The FBI is expanding contacts with Somali immigrant communities in the U.S., especially in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, fearing that terrorists are recruiting young men for suicide missions in their homeland.

FBI Special Agent E.K. Wilson, spokesman for the Twin Cities FBI field office, described the effort as community outreach. Many members of the Somali community are concerned over disappearances, he said.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...

#

ON THE INTERNET:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1810409/posts?page=1008#1008

#

A bit off topic, but fyi:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2155483/posts?page=6#6


14 posted on 01/18/2009 8:16:31 PM PST by Cindy
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To: Cindy

ADDING 1 more link to post no. 14:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2147450/posts?page=4#4


15 posted on 01/18/2009 8:29:14 PM PST by Cindy
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To: ButThreeLeftsDo

And the churches undertook this because . . . ?


16 posted on 01/18/2009 8:56:13 PM PST by A_Former_Democrat
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To: A_Former_Democrat

That’s what they do.

They sponsor immigrants.

They beg for money to help out the “oppressed”.

And then, when the “oppressed” form gangs and kill over territory....

The churches pray about global warming.....


17 posted on 01/18/2009 9:05:02 PM PST by ButThreeLeftsDo (FR......Monthly Donors Wanted)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

The young Hassan will be back in 18 years as a U.S. presidential candidate. Barack Hussein will be midway through his 5th term by 2027.


18 posted on 01/18/2009 9:05:22 PM PST by informavoracious
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To: Free ThinkerNY

And the reason for allowing Somalis to emigrate to the US was?


19 posted on 01/18/2009 9:05:31 PM PST by headstamp 2 (Been here before)
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To: Free ThinkerNY
he studied Islam at the nearby Abubakar As-Saddique mosque. He joined its youth group.

I think I see the problem.

L

20 posted on 01/18/2009 9:06:53 PM PST by Lurker ("America is at that awkward stage. " Claire Wolfe, call your office.)
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