Bartamaha, MN – A federal judge on Friday sentenced the first man out of more than a dozen charged in a sweeping counterterrorism investigation that has spanned more than two years and several continents and focused a spotlight on the Twin Cities Somali community.

Abdow Munye Abdow, 26, was a relatively small player in a major drama involving the recruitment of 20 or more local men of Somali descent to aid and, in some cases, fight for the Somali terrorist group Al-Shabaab. U.S. District Judge James Rosenbaum sentenced Abdow to four months behind bars and four months of home confinement for lying to federal agents investigating the case.

But Friday’s sentencing marks a milestone in one of the nation’s largest counterterrorism investigations since the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Abdow, who rented a car used by terror suspects to flee the country, is the first to have his case resolved by the courts.

“Today’s sentencing constitutes another positive step in our continuing efforts to bring the broader matter to full resolution,” said Ralph Boelter, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Minneapolis office. “The American public should know that the FBI remains steadfast in its commitment to identify and mitigate threats to our national security that emanate here or elsewhere.”

A total of 14 men, most of whom lived in the Minneapolis area, have been charged or indicted in connection with an investigation that began more than two years ago, after young Somali men from Minnesota started secretly slipping away from their families.

Five of the 14, including Abdow, have pleaded guilty in connection with the case. One local man awaits trial. Another sits in jail in the Netherlands, awaiting extradition. The rest are believed to have fled the country and remain at large.

Five Somali men have been killed in the fighting waged by Al-Shabaab for control of war-torn Somalia. Another Minneapolis man, a convert to Islam, also was killed.

On Friday, a spokeswoman with the U.S. attorney’s office said the investigation is continuing. Similar cases of Somalis returning to their homeland to train and fight have arisen in Europe, Canada and Australia.

A faraway blast

The Minnesota investigation took off in October 2008, when Shirwa Ahmed, an American citizen who attended high school and college in Minneapolis, died as part of a coordinated suicide bombing attack in northern Somalia. Ahmed’s death immediately heightened fears in the U.S. intelligence community that other Somali men from the United States who left to train and fight with a terrorist group might return to America and carry out an attack here.

While FBI officials say they’ve found no evidence of planned attacks on U.S. soil, investigators learned that many of the men who left here were indeed trained to fight in Somalia.

Over the next year, investigators say, more than a dozen young local men were seduced to the cause of fighting for Al-Shabaab, a group the U.S. State Department said is aligned with Al-Qaida. Al-Shabaab has been fighting for control of Somalia, but it also has extended its reach with attacks in neighboring countries.

One of the key local figures in romanticizing the fight was Cabdulaahi Ahmed Faarax. According to court records, Faarax used stories of his own fighting in Somalia to recruit others. As part of his pitch, Faarax said that he “experienced true brotherhood” while fighting. Travel for jihad was the best thing that they could do, he said.

Those recruited by Faarax were reportedly trained by Somali, Arab and Western instructors “in the use of small arms, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, and military-style tactics,” records say. They also were indoctrinated against Ethiopian, American, Israeli and Western beliefs.

In October 2009, Faarax was one of several men in a car stopped by the Nevada Highway Patrol. Abdow, who had rented the car in Minnesota, was a passenger. The men said they were going to San Diego to attend a wedding.

Two days later, Faarax and another man crossed into Mexico. A friend of Faarax’s later said that Faarax posted on Facebook that he had made it out of the country and was “home.”