Associated Press MINNEAPOLIS – An activist at a Minneapolis mosque where several Somali men and teenagers worshipped before returning to their war-torn homeland said Tuesday that she tried to block two of them from leaving the U.S.

Abia Ali, who is scheduled to testify before a federal grand jury Tuesday, told Minnesota Public Radio that she surmised their plans when they visited a Minneapolis travel agency where she worked as a tax preparer in early in 2008.

She said she expects to be questioned about her knowledge of the teens’ efforts to leave. The FBI is investigating whether about a dozen Somali young men and teenagers who have gone missing over the last few years were recruited in Minneapolis to join an Islamic militia in Somalia.

The agency has consistently declined comment about the probe.

Ali, who also is from Somalia, said she recognized Mohamed Hassan and Mustafa Salat from her work volunteering with youth programs at the Abubakar As-Saddique mosque. She had been hearing rumblings in the community about a handful of young men going back to the East African nation to fight the Ethiopian invasion.

“You know how you just add one plus one? Some of the boys who left before, they knew each other. Maybe they were communicating,” Ali said. “What came to my mind was, ‘Oh my God, here we go again. These guys also want to leave.’”

Ali said that after the teens left the agency, she told the travel agent not to sell them plane tickets to Africa. She also made copies of the Somali passports the teens provided and turned them over to the mosque’s director.

Her main concern was alerting the teens’ parents, yet Mohamed and Mustafa were somehow allowed to travel to Somalia without their parents’ permission. Both were 17 at the time. Their current whereabouts are unclear.