Minnesota Kids Join Terrorists in Somalia

by Laura Yuen, Minnesota Public Radio St. Paul, Minn. — Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison said the U.S. government is trying to ensure the safe return of some of the young Somali-American men believed to be fighting with a terrorist group in their homeland.

Ellison said he has been included in classified briefings about efforts to bring the missing men back to the Twin Cities.

At least four Somali-American men from Minnesota who left to fight in the Horn of Africa have died there in recent months.

One of youngest, a skinny teenager from Minneapolis named Burhan Hassan, was trying to leave the fighting and make his way to the U.S. embassy in neighboring Kenya, according to family members. They believe a fellow member of the extremist group Al-Shabaab shot Hassan to death when the group learned of his plans to escape.

Congressman Keith Ellison thinks the U.S. should try to retrieve the Minnesotan men who may have been misled into joining Al-Shabaab and want out.

“We can’t have a knee-jerk emotional reaction,” Ellison said. “We’ve got to have an intelligent reaction. If a young person says, ‘I have been lied to. I don’t like these people. I want to get away from them,’ we should help them do that, as long as we know that does not create a public safety issue for Minnesotans and Americans.”

Ellison wouldn’t offer more details of the plans, saying the discussions were classified. But he said the efforts involve private non-governmental organizations as well as government entities. A State Department official did not respond to requests for interviews.

Ellison, whose district includes the largest concentration of Somali-Americans in the country, said the U.S. government has a vested interest in bringing the men back to safety. The FBI is investigating how and why about 20 men left the Twin Cities to join the chaos and bloodshed of a homeland they barely knew.Larger viewBurhan Hassan

Ellison said the U.S. should send a message to the young fighters.

“If you’ve learned the truth about these exploitative organizations like Shabaab, who are so dangerous, then abandon them and then help tell the truth about what these groups are really all about,” Ellison said.

The Minneapolis office of the FBI has encouraged any of the Minnesota fighters who have had second thoughts to find their way to “the nearest friendly diplomatic agency.”

“If these men did come to a point where they wanted to return home, that they were disenchanted with the situation over there, tired of the fighting and wanting to come home, we’d certainly like to get the word out that they should do that,” said FBI spokesman E.K. Wilson.

But Wilson also added that the FBI remains focused on the investigation, “and that focus has not changed at all.”

Asking a fighter to simply walk away from Al-Shabaab because he had a change of heart is a tall order. Families have heard that the men are being closely guarded.

Mogadishu has been under siege in recent weeks as groups like Al-Shabaab vie for power. The U.S. has no diplomatic presence in Somalia; however the FBI has staff and agents in neighboring countries that are assisting in the investigation.

Still, at least two men with Minnesota ties were able to escape Al-Shabaab, back in December 2007.

Court records released this week say Abdifatah Isse left for Somalia in hopes of fighting against the Ethiopian troops who invaded the country. According to the documents, only after Isse arrived in Somalia, he realized he joined a movement connected to Al-Shabaab.

At the time, the U.S. had yet to declare Al-Shabaab as a terrorist group. Isse and another Minnesota man were able to flee Al-Shabaab soon after arriving.

A friend identified the other man as 26-year-old Salah Ahmed of New Brighton. The friend said Ahmed told the other Minnesota fighters that he needed to seek treatment for his allergies.

Then Ahmed and Isse escaped to Kismayo, and eventually returned to the United States.
Now, the two men are back in Minnesota — behind bars.

Authorities this week released indictments charging each of them with providing material support to terrorism and conspiring to kill people abroad. At least one of the men, Isse, is cooperating with authorities. A trial for Ahmed is scheduled for October.

But bringing the remaining recruits back to the U.S. isn’t without risk. John Radsan, a former assistant general counsel for the CIA, said the U.S. government is taking such a heightened interest in the case of the Somali-American fighters because of broader concerns on global terror.

“These people are trained, perhaps over there. They become radicalized over there,” Radsan said. “They are engaged in combat, and if those people can be put on that cycle, it’s only another step before they might come back here to do bad things in the Twin Cities.”

Counterterrorism officials have said they have no evidence that the young men were plotting attacks on the U.S.

Congressman Ellison agrees that the U.S. government’s first responsibility is to protect its residents. But he also thinks if the recruits pose no threat to national security, they should be allowed to re-integrate into the American culture they left behind.
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Source: MPR(Reporters Elizabeth Stawicki and Sasha Aslanian contributed to this report.)
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Shabaab Assassinates One if its Minnesota Mujahadeen Rescruits

Al Shabaab may have murdered Minneapolis recruit in Somalia
By Jerry Gordon 06/08/09 07:04 AM EDT


FoxNews, reported the second death of a Somali American youth from Minneapolis, 17 year old Burhan Hassan in Mogadishu, Friday.

Hassan may have been recruited for the Taliban-like Al Shabaab militia in Somalia at the Abubakar As-Saddique Mosque in Minneapolis.

• Hassan's uncle, Osman Ahmed testified at a US Senate Homeland Security and Government Committee (HSGAC) hearing in March about his nephew, Hassan and accusations against the Mosque's Imam, who was put on a government 'no-fly' list.
• Last December, the remains of another Minneapolis Somali American, 27-year old Shirwa Ahmed, a suicide bomber who took the lives of 29 others in Somalia ,were returned for a funeral and interment.
• Both Hassan and Ahmed attended Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis. The FBI has been investigation the 'disapperance' of upwards of 40 Minneapolis area Somali American young men who were reported to have gone to Somalia.

Hassan's uncle Osman Ahmed in the Fox report noted:

• "Someone who claimed (to be) a member of al-Shabaab called Burhan's mom Friday (afternoon) and said Burhan died Friday morning," Ahmed said.
• "Burhan's mom got shocked and (threw) the phone when she heard the story."
• "Al-Shabaab assassinated Burhan and shot (him in) the head," the individual said, according to Ahmed.

A law enforcement official told FOX News on Sunday that one of the Somali-American men was recently killed in Somalia by artillery fire, but the official declined to release the man's name.
"My sister still is under shock," Ahmed said.

Ahmed accused the Abubakar As-Siddque Mosque leaders of recruiting his nephew for Al Shabaab:

• "Like his peers, Burhan Hassan was never interested in Somali politics, or understood Somali clan issues," Ahmed said during testimony.
• "These kids have no perception of Somalia except the one that was formed in their mind by their teachers at (a local mosque).
• We believe that these children did not travel to Somalia by themselves. There must be others who made them understand that going to Somalia and participatingon the fighting is the right thing to do."

Al Shabaab also appeared to be recruting Jailhouse converts to Islam as Jihadis, such as those caught in the New York City Temple Bombing plot.

• We note the death of an Army Private and wounding of fellow recruiter at a West Little Rock mall by, Carlos Bledsoe AKA Abdulhakim Muhammad, an American convert to Islam who traveled to Yemen, and who apparently frequented a radical Mosque in Columbus, Ohio.

The Rest @ RedC0unty.com