Terror-Related Arrest Began in Las Vegas

Last week we linked to a story on Fox News about a a Somali man on the U.S. government’s terrorist watch list who was stopped  outside Las Vegas along with four other men. The man was released because the officer had no legal authority to detain him. As we stated in the post, the story didn’t end there.Two days after the vehicle was pulled over outside Las Vegas, two of the passengers appeared at the U.S.-Mexico border crossing in San Ysidro, Calif.

So is that the end of the story?  Apparently not.

The Channel 8 I-Team in Las Vegas has additional details as well as pdfs of a Criminal Complaint and Criminal Indictment

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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.

Source

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.

Source

FBI Raids Travel Agency to Investigate Missing Somalis

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation searched the office of a Minnesota travel agency this week for clues to the disappearance of 20 Somali-American men believed to be fighting in Somalia’s civil war.

Omar Jamal, spokesman for the Somali Justice Advocacy Center, says the owner of Amana Travel was approached several months ago by two young men who wanted to travel to Somalia. Jamal says the owner, Ali Mohamud, refused to book the tickets when he learned the young men’s parents were unaware of their plans.

But about 20 Somali-American men from the Minnesota area, including those two young men, have disappeared in the last two years. They are believed to be in Somalia fighting with the Islamist militant group al-Shabab against the Somali government and its allies.

The U.S. considers al-Shabab a terrorist group.

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Extremists Who Raided U.N. Offices Not Considered a Terror Group

The extremist group al-Shabaab raided three U.N. offices in Somalia last week in a campaign to rid the volatile African nation of all “enemies of Islam,” and the world body can’t do a thing about it — yet.

Though the U.S. State Department designated al-Shabaab a foreign terrorist organization in March 2008, the U.N. has yet to add the Islamic militia to its list of terrorist groups whose members face international sanctions and travel bans.

While the U.S. has been cracking down on the Al Qaeda-linked group’s recruitment efforts at home, the lack of an international standard has allowed al-Shabaab to channel its funds — much of which come from piracy along Somalia’s lengthy coast — through banks in the Arabian Gulf.

“There are millions and millions and millions of dollars coming into this organization. It’s being funneled in banks in Qatar and other places — that’s pretty well documented — yet nobody’s really doing anything about it,” said Jeffrey Addicott, director of the Center for Terrorism Law at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas.

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Group Linked to Al Qaeda May Have Killed Minnesota Man

A Minnesota man recruited to join an Al Qaeda-linked terrorist group overseas may have been assassinated in Somalia by the very terrorist group he went there to help.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been investigating for several months at least 20 Somali-American men from the Minneapolis area who recently traveled to Somalia to train with the terrorist group al-Shabaab.

One of those men — 17-year-old Burhan Hassan — was killed in Mogadishu on Friday, his uncle, Osman Ahmed, told FOX News.

“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 mans name.

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DHS Halts U.S. Based Delta Flights Into Kenya

Increased fighting in Somalia and recent threat information indicating possible attacks against US interests in East Africa have prompted the Department of Homeland Security to deny Delta Airlines their first direct flights to and from Nairobi, Kenya which were to begin today from the United States.

The flights were to embark from Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport and arrive in Nairobi with a welcoming ceremony with Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga.

Late on Monday night, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano decided to cancel the flights following recommendations from the Transportation Security Administration. According to one official Napolitano called Delta’s CEO to inform Delta of the decision

Source

Somalis, FBI On Alert For Terrorist Recruiting

In a corner office of a strip mall here, Somali leaders are working on a mission that has its roots in a string of sudden disappearances more than 700 miles away.

While federal agents and Somali leaders in the Twin Cities struggle to find answers to whether up to 20 young men may have returned to Somalia to fight or receive terrorist training, leaders in Columbus are scrambling to prevent anything similar from happening here.

They are preaching against terror in the mosques, monitoring their sons after school and sharing information with the FBI.

“No one has disappeared,” said Ahmed Hosh, who works with Somali youths in Columbus. “But if those who did the recruiting were individuals talking to someone alone, the scary thing is it could happen here.”

via Source

Somali Pirates Seize Italian-flagged Tugboat, 16 crew

Pirates captured an Italian-flagged tugboat with 16 crew including 10 Italians on Saturday, in the latest hijacking in the busy Gulf of Aden.

The tugboat, with enough fuel and food on board to last a month, was believed to be heading toward the Somali coast, the head of the Italian company that owns the boat told Reuters.

“I’ve entered into contact with the families (of the crew),” Claudio Bartolotti, head of Ravenna-based Micoperi Srl, said, adding there were also five Romanians and one Croatian on board.

Bartolotti denied reports the 75-metre-long tugboat was U.S.-owned, saying his company had recently purchased it.

NATO alliance officials on a warship in the region had previously described the boat as U.S.-owned, Italian-flagged.

Andrew Mwangura, of the Mombasa-based East African Seafarers’ Assistance Programme, said the tugboat’s crew were believed to be unharmed.

He said the tugboat was towing two barges at the time of capture but there were no details about their cargo.

“This incident shows the pirates are becoming more daring and violent,” Mwangura told Reuters by phone.

via Reuters AlertNet – Pirates seize Italian-flagged tugboat, 16 crew.

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

FBI Concerned Young Men Being Recruited For Terrorism

Sources told KING 5 News that Seattle FBI agents are now working on a nationwide terrorism investigation.

The FBI has confirmed some cases of young men traveling to the East African nation of Somalia to join al Qaeda-sponsored groups there.

One of the cases they’re looking at includes a man killed in fighting in Somalia last year – an American citizen from Seattle. Read more

FBI Watching Somali Muslims In Minneapolis

On election night last November, the outcome was wildly celebrated by Somalis living in Minneapolis, 70,000-strong, mostly refugees from their war-torn country. It is the largest Somali community in the United States.

But the evening was noteworthy for something else, too. That night, the latest in a line of young Somalis who grew up here, departed unannounced for Somalia itself, joining a civil war in a country few had ever seen and causing concern in the United States.

Hussein Samatar’s 17-year old nephew left without a word to his family.

“He was an A student,” says Samatar. “He has everything to hope for to attend any Ivy League school that he wanted to. Why he would do it is a mystery to us.”

Some 20 vanished last year – all American citizens – an exodus the FBI has noticed for a troubling reason.

“A man from Minneapolis became what we believe to be the first U.S. citizen to carry out a terrorist suicide bombing,” said agency director Robert Mueller.

The October attack by 27-year-old Shirwa Ahmed killed 30 near Mogadishu, and there is alarm that the skills acquired abroad could be brought back to America.

“He could have done it here,” says Omar Jamal, a Somali advocate in Minnesota. “We don’t see anything that would have prevented him from doing this right here in the heart of Minneapolis.”

This much seems clear:

“It appears that this individual was radicalized in his hometown in Minnesota,” Mueller said.

The missing men all came from one local mosque, according to the FBI. But officials at the mosque deny that they play any role in turning young people into radicals, Reynolds reports.

Source

Inauguration Day Terror Threat A Ruse?

So was there a threat or not?  According to one report, the inauguration day terror threat was a ruse.

Inauguration Terror Threat Debunked

A potential terror threat just before last week’s presidential inauguration turned out to be a ruse, a top military commander said Tuesday.

However, Gen. Gene Renuart, chief of U.S. Northern Command, warned that ongoing security concerns still face the Obama administration during its early days.

Renuart, the military commander in charge of domestic defense, said reports pointing to a possible threat from an East Africa terrorist group were the result of claims by another faction and turned out to be untrue.

“It was more a function of two factions who didn’t like each other setting the other up,” Renuart said. He did not identify the other faction.

But Was It A Ruse?

Rusty at The Jawa Report highlights a few recent “coincidences“

A) Homeland Security announces an non-specific threat against President Obama from Somalia’s al Qaeda affiliate, the al-Shebaab. Possibly a threat conveyed through the internet?

B) The al Shebaab’s U.S. hosted website was ordered shut down by the federal government, after over a year of operating openly.

C) 15 Somalians, some of them reported as American citizens and the rest reported as living in the United States for some time, were recently arrested in Somaliland

Coincidence?  Maybe, but Rusty says his gut says no and the following story from MyFox Twin Cities suggests there may be a few more dots to connect.

U.S. Officials: Minnesota Somali Man a Possible Threat on Inauguration Day

With the inauguration of President Barack Obama in the past, U.S. officials are reporting information about possible threats on the day of the ceremony by a Minnesota Somali man.

U.S. intelligence was reportedly investigating a potential inauguration threat involving a Somali insurgent group. They believed one man to be connected with the missing Somali men from Minnesota.

48 hours before the inauguration, U.S. customs agents arrested the 32-year-old Bile Abdullahi, a resident alien from Minnesota, at the Canadian border near Detroit.

According to federal charges, Abdullahi was trying to sneak into Canada using his brother’s U.S. passport. Both Bile Abdullahi and his brother are from Minneapolis, and until recently lived in the Cedar Riverside apartment complex.

Abdullahi told officials he was going to Canada for a vacation, but intelligence officials fear it could’ve been some kind of dress rehearsal for leaving the country in a hurry.

Fox News has learned Abdullahi’s arrest was just part of the intelligence that led to a cryptic warning.

The FBI and Homeland Security were investigating information about a potential threat on inauguration day.The information was of limited specificity and uncertain credibility.

The threat reportedly involved Al Shabaab, an Al-Qaeda connected radical Muslim group, operating terror training camps in Somalia.

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