After 20 Twin Cities Somali men disappeared and then turned up in Somalia with a terrorist group, U.S. government scrutiny and parental vigilance have countered the problem, said Saeed Fahia, a Somali elder.
A prominent Minneapolis Somali community leader said Tuesday that he believes the recruitment of young Somali-Americans from the Twin Cities to fight jihad in their homeland has slowed or stopped.
Speaking at a workshop to address the issue, Saeed Fahia, executive director of the Confederation of Somali Communities of Minnesota, said the radicalization of Somali youth here is “over.” The combination of worldwide media and law enforcement scrutiny, coupled with greater vigilance by parents, has caused the recruiting pipeline here to dry up, he said.
“It’s come to a halt. People felt this has gone too far,” Fahia said. “And the thing is, parents are really alert. Many parents are saying, ‘Where are my children? Who do they talk to?’ You don’t trust anybody.”
Fahia’s comments come as federal investigators bear down on those believed to have recruited up to 20 Twin Cities men over the past two years to fight for Al-Shabaab, a Somali Islamic group that the State Department defines as a terrorist organization affiliated with Al-Qaida. Counterterrorism officials point to the ongoing risk that local Somalis, many of whom are U.S. citizens, could return to this country as trained terrorists.
Four of the Twin Cities men have been killed in Somalia. The first to die was Shirwa Ahmed, who blew himself up as a suicide bomber late last year. Three others have died since June. The circumstances of those deaths are less clear.
Last month, indictments against two men of Somali descent became public in federal court. The men have pleaded guilty to providing material support to terror groups after each returned to Somalia and trained with Al-Shabaab.
More indictments are expected, as authorities try to identify those who provided the motivation and the money for the young men to travel.
FBI officials will not say whether local recruiting efforts have subsided. But that is a goal, said Special Agent E.K. Wilson.
“While our ongoing investigation prevents us from identifying a specific number or trend of travelers, it is an objective of this case to deter further travel by Americans to the Horn of Africa to fight or train with terrorist organizations,” he said. “Our hope is that our investigative efforts and extensive outreach and dialogue will see to that.”
Fahia acknowledged that he has no hard evidence that fewer men are leaving for civil war abroad. But a Minneapolis travel agent who sold tickets to several of the men said he has turned away more than 20 young men since late last year because they did not come accompanied by a parent.
Based on what Fahia said he is hearing in the community and through online news outlets, Al-Shabaab’s work here is “not at the same level it was before.”
Fahia said Tuesday there are two theories regarding the men’s recruitment: that they recruited themselves and raised their own money, or that they were indoctrinated by a small group of Al-Shabaab recruiters who organized and financed their travel.
“I’m thinking there could be some radical Al-Shabaab elements here, maybe five people or six people,” he said. But Fahia said he didn’t know how or where recruiters connected with the young men.
Recruited for jihad
While federal investigators have yet to disclose precise details about who recruited the men, sources familiar with the investigation said recruiters met secretly with small groups of young men over several months at restaurants, parking lots, college classrooms and Somali shopping malls.
How the men knew one another is unclear. However, many were known to have attended prayers or to socialize at Abubakar as-Saddique Islamic Center in south Minneapolis. An attorney representing one man who has pleaded guilty and is working with investigators, said in court papers that his client was recruited “at a house of worship.”
Leaders at Abubakar say they were not involved in any recruiting.
Another man who has pleaded guilty to supporting terrorists, Salah Ahmed, said he was recruited by Al-Shabaab to go to Somalia “to fight the Ethiopians” — who ousted an Islamic government from Somalia in 2006.
Ahmed said he secretly met with other men from October to December 2007, before leaving for Somalia.
While pleading guilty July 28, Ahmed told U.S. District Judge James Rosenbaum that recruiters “started helping us buy tickets to go to Somalia.”
Ahmed said he and others raised the money — from $1,500 to $2,000 each — by collecting contributions from fellow Somalis at shopping malls in south Minneapolis. But other sources say it’s unlikely up to 20 young men raised up to $40,000 by holding out cups.
Rosenbaum denied the release of Abdifatah Yusuf Isse, a Seattle man who has pleaded guilty, because the unknown financiers “may well be able to finance a second departure.”
“Five or six” of the young men went to a local travel agency in September 2008, accompanied by a bearded older man, said the travel agent, who asked not to be named for fear of being killed.
The men traveled individually or in pairs, so as not to draw suspicion. They never traveled directly from Minneapolis to Somalia. They would take a circuitous route, often stopping in Boston, New York and Amsterdam before continuing to Nairobi, Kenya, Djibouti or Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
In Isse’s case, he “met two other co-conspirators” in Dubai, according to court documents.
From Dubai and the other locations, the men typically made the final connection into Mogadishu or Hargeisa, Somalia.
Still a mystery
Fahia acknowledged Tuesday that answers in this investigation, now more than a year old, are hard to come by. In a community of people who pride themselves on knowing their neighbors’ business, local Somalis don’t know — or aren’t saying — who is responsible for sending away their sons.
“These people are in the dark,” Fahia said of recruiters. “You don’t see them. We don’t know their names.”
Source: Startribune
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