al Shabaab – Terror Group Linked To al Qaeda May Target U.S.

al Shabaab, the al Qaeda linked terror group made up primarily of Somali Islamists, appears to no longer be satisfied committing acts of terror in Somalia alone and according to a Fox news report, could be setting it’s sites on attacking the U.S.

From Fox News

They could strike the United States. That grim assessment is the first time the FBI director or any other senior law enforcement or intelligence official has stated on the record that the Al Qaeda-linked group al-Shabaab is no longer content to strike within the East African nation of Somalia.

During a hearing on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, FBI Director Robert Mueller was asked if members of al-Shabaab, which translates as “mujahideen youth,” would send American recruits back to the U.S. to launch attacks.

“I would think that we have seen some information that the leaders would like to undertake operations outside of Somalia,” Mueller told the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

Mueller said he is “absolutely” concerned that Americans who traveled to Somalia to train as terrorists would have U.S. legal status and would therefore be able to return to the United States and carry out attacks.

A U.S. counterterrorism official told FOX News that al-Shabaab has exploded since 2006, and it is becoming a full-fledged Al Qaeda affiliate, similar to Al Qaeda in Iraq. Initially the group’s militias fought against the Somali government and Ethopian forces who are against an Islamic state in East Africa, the official said, but now the group’s focus is turning toward the establishment of a “caliphate” or broad Islamic state not limited to Africa.

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Navy SEALs Kill Wanted Terrorist in Somali Raid

Navy SEALs from US Special Operations Forces conducted a raid in southern Somalia on Monday that killed Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, one of 4 co-conspirators wanted in the 2002 bombing of an Israel owned hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, two senior U.S. military officials told Fox News.

Ten days ago President Obama signed the Execute Order for Nabhan, who since 2006 was on the FBI’s list of most wanted terrorists. He was also wanted for the attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Kenya in 1998.

They called it operation Celestial Balance: at least two AH-6 Little Bird helicopters deployed from one of two U.S. Navy vessels near Somalia’s coast strafed a vehicle Nabhan was using to go back and forth between meetings.

Intelligence operatives had been monitoring Sabhan prior to the attack. The helicopters passed once, firing on the vehicle, and then circled back around to retrieve the body so they could make a positive identification, according to an official.

The attack in Mombasa took place on Nov. 28, 2002 – involving a suicide bomber that blew up the lobby of the Israeli owned Paradise hotel. On the same day the attackers unsuccessfully attempted to shoot down an Israeli owned Boeing 757 civilian jetliner run by Arkia. They fired surface to air missiles and missed.

Nabhan’s Somali group, Al- Shabaab, has links to Al Qaeda.

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al Amriki – Charges Await Al Qaeda-Linked American Terrorist

A week after the 9/11 attacks, a young Muslim at South Alabama University told the school’s newspaper it was “difficult to believe a Muslim could have done this.” Now, eight years later, he is professing to launch attacks himself and calling on others to join the fight, as terror-related charges await him at home in Alabama.

Abu Mansour al-Amriki — or “The American” — has become one of the most recognizable and outspoken voices of terrorist propaganda.

He has been in war-torn Somalia for several years, fighting the secular government there with a group known as al-Shabaab, which has ties to Al Qaeda and was labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S. government last year. Only recently has he taken on a starring — and jarring — role in al-Shabaab’s outreach efforts.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been looking into him for several years. In fact, a grand jury in Mobile, Ala., has already indicted him on charges of providing material support to terrorists, a source said. It’s unclear when the indictment was filed.

Al-Amriki first surfaced in October 2007, when Al-Jazeera TV aired a report about the “common goal” of Al Qaeda and hard-line militants in Somalia. The report described al-Amriki as “a fighter” and “military instructor,” but he concealed his face with a cloth wrap throughout the report.

In April, he showed his face for the first time, during a highly-polished, 30-minute recruitment video posted online. It featured anti-American hip-hop and sporadic images of Usama bin Laden.

In the video, he purportedly led a group of al-Shabaab militants in an ambush of pro-government forces in Somalia. Speaking about one man killed in the fight, he said, “We need more like him, so if you can encourage more of your children and more of your neighbors, anyone around, to send people like him to this jihad, it would be a great asset for us.”

The violent world that 25-year-old al-Amriki now inhabits is a stark contrast to the sleepy, suburban life he left behind.

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Group of Somali-Americans Indicted on Terror Charges

A federal grand jury has indicted a group of Somali-Americans on terror-related charges after more than 20 young men from the Minneapolis area were recruited to join an Al Qaeda-linked group in Somalia, according to two law enforcement sources.

The indictments have yet to be unsealed, but an announcement is expected in the next few weeks. One law enforcement source told FOX News the grand jury already has handed up indictments against at least three people.

Among those charged is a man from Minneapolis who went to war-torn Somalia and then, about four months ago, relocated to Seattle, according to the two sources and a leader in the Minneapolis Somali community. The man was then arrested in a Seattle airport and transferred to a jail in Minneapolis, where he is currently being detained, according to the law enforcement sources.

The law enforcement sources said the man, described as in his 20s, has been charged with providing material support to a terrorist group, in this case al-Shabaab, which has been warring with the moderate Somali government since 2006.

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Al Shabaab Claims Resposibility For Mortar Attack

Donald M. Payne, a New Jersey congressman and the chairman of the House sub-committee on Africa, narrowly escaped a mortar attack on Monday as he was ending a quick and rare visit to Somalia’s bullet-ridden capital. Just a day after American military snipers killed three Somali pirates and freed a kidnapped sea captain, eliciting vows of revenge from pirates and other Somalis, several mortars exploded in the vicinity of Mr. Payne’s plane as it was taking off from Mogadishu’s airport for Nairobi, Kenya. At least 10 civilians were wounded in the explosions. The congressman was unhurt and it was unclear if insurgents who routinely shell the airport were trying to hit his plane or simply unleashing another assault on the city’s main lifeline.

An Islamist insurgent group vying for control of the country, Al Shabaab, later took responsibility for the attack, Reuters reported.

“We fired on the airport to target the so-called democratic congressman sent by Obama,” said Sheikh Hussein Ali, a spokesman for Al Shabaab. “Let him go back with the message of our strength and enmity towards the U.S. and its allies. No single group can claim control of Mogadishu, and Al Shabaab will continue its attacks.”

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American Al Qaeda In Somalia Hold Press Conference

Two young Americans who left their homes to join an Al Qaeda-linked terrorist group in Somalia held a rare “press conference” in Southern Somalia on Monday, saying they want to be killed “for the sake of God,” according to a U.S. law enforcement official and a video posted on a Somali news Web site.

For several months the FBI has been investigating at least 20 Somali-American men from the Minneapolis area and elsewhere in the United States who traveled to war-torn Somalia to join the terrorist group al-Shabaab, which has been warring with the moderate Somali government since 2006.

Last month, a source familiar with the FBI investigation told FOX News that “several” of the men had returned to the United States, while others “are still there [in Somalia].” Today is the first time any of these men have spoken publicly.

“We came from the U.S. with a good life and a good education, but we came to fight alongside our brothers of al-Shabaab … to be killed for the sake of God,” one man said in the video, as translated by Omar Jamal, the executive director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center in St. Paul, Minn.

In the video, two men, identifying themselves as Abu-Muslim and Abu Yaxye, say they are “Somali youth” from the United States who are now stationed near the city of Kismayo, more than 300 miles southwest of Mogadishu, according to Jamal. The men say they are talking to media for the first time so others can learn why they joined al-Shabaab, he said.

A spokesman from the FBI Field Office in Minneapolis, E.K. Wilson, said he is “aware of the video,” which was posted on the Web site dowladnimo.com. He said the video was first brought to his office’s attention early Sunday.

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New Video May Help FBI Solve Somali-American Terror Case

A video posted on a jihadist Web site could Read more

Missing Somali-Americans Back in U.S. After Overseas Terror Mission

Many of the Somali-American men who were recruited to join an Al Qaeda-linked terrorist group overseas have returned to the United States, according to a source familiar with an FBI investigation into the matter — but the FBI still has not revealed publicly if it is pursuing arrests in the case.

“Some of the guys who were missing aren’t missing anymore,” the source said. “Some of them got blown up and some of them came back, and some of them are still there [in Somalia].”

For several months the FBI has been investigating at least 20 Somali-American men from the Minneapolis area who traveled to war-torn Somalia, where some of them trained and fought with an Al Qaeda-linked terrorist group known as al-Shabaab, according to counterterrorism officials.

Asked to characterize how many of those men are now back on American soil, the source would only say that “several” have returned. Federal authorities believe the men went to Somalia to join al-Shabaab, which has been warring with the moderate Somali government since 2006.

Usama bin Laden weighed in Thursday on the battle. In an audiotape posted online, the Al Qaeda leader urged Somalis to fight against the Somali government, insisting, “The war which has been taking place on your soil these past years is a war between Islam and the international crusade.”

via FOXNews.com

Domestic Terror Threat Growing, Senate Committee Warns

There is an increasing threat of homegrown terror stemming from segments of a deeply isolated and alienated Somali-American community, a U.S. Senate committee hearing concluded Wednesday.

The hearing, conducted by the Senate Homeland and Governmental Affairs Committee, focused on the attempted recruitment of young Somali-American men by al-Shabaab, “a violent and brutal extremist (Somali) group” with significant ties to al Qaeda, according to the U.S. State Department.

“Over the last two years, individuals from the Somali community in the United States, including American citizens, have left for Somalia to support and in some cases fight on behalf of al-Shabaab,” noted the committee’s chairman, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Connecticut.

Al-Shabaab — also known as the Mujahedeen Youth Movement — was officially designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government in March 2008.

The hearing highlighted the case of Shirwa Ahmed, a 27-year-old Somali-American who had been radicalized by al-Shabaab in his adopted home state of Minnesota before traveling to Somalia and blowing up himself and 29 others in October.

The idea that Ahmed was radicalized in the United States raised red flags throughout the U.S. intelligence community. The incident — the first suicide bombing by a naturalized U.S. citizen — was the “most significant case of homegrown American terrorism recruiting based on violent Islamist ideology,” Lieberman said.

“The dangers brought to light by these revelations is clear: radicalized individuals trained in terrorist tactics and in possession of American passports can clearly pose a threat to the security of our country,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

via Domestic terror threat growing, Senate committee warns – CNN.com.