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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Man On Terror Watchlist Stopped Then Let Go – Las Vegas

Fox news is reporting that a Somali man on the U.S. government’s terrorist watchlist was stopped last week by a police officer outside Las Vegas along with four other men, but the officer had no legal authority to detain the man so he was sent on his way, according to the report.

Apparently the story doesn’t end there. According to the Fox News ‘Liveshot’s report. 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.

According to court documents, they had been dropped off by a taxicab, and they told a customs official at the border crossing “that they would be flying from Tijuana airport to Mexico City airport, and [they] displayed airline tickets to the Officer.”

In several cases over the past decade, Mexico has been a waypoint for travel between the United States and Somalia.

Meanwhile, the driver of the rented vehicle, is the only one of the five Somali men to be facing charges so far.

He has been charged in a criminal complaint with lying to the FBI.

The officer who stopped the vehicle found $4,000 in the car and eventually learned that the driver’s wife had filed a missing persons report in Minneapolis. The officer contacted the FBI, which interviewed the man on Oct. 8.

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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

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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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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Somali Man’s Family Says He’s Not A Terrorist

Prosecutors portray a 25-year-old Minneapolis man accused of waging jihad in Somalia as a would-be terrorist who went so far as to help build a training camp. But family members of Abdifatah Yusuf Isse say the former college economics major never wanted to be a terrorist but got in over his head after he accepted a plane ticket to Somalia so he could visit his grandmother.

Isse and Salah Osman Ahmed, 26, are the first two men charged in a long-running federal investigation into the recruitment of Minnesota Somalis to join Islamist fighters in Somalia.

A grand jury indictment in February was unsealed this week after Ahmed was arrested. The court file, briefly sealed and then unsealed Wednesday without explanation, sheds some

This undated photo provided Wednesday, July 15, 2009 by the Washington County Jail in Stillwater, Minn., shows Abdifatah Yusuf Isse. Isse is one of two men accused of supporting terrorism in a grand jury indictment unsealed Monday, the first charges in an investigation into the disappearances of several young Somali men who activists believe were recruited from the Minneapolis area by radical elements in Somalia. (AP Photo/Washington County Jail) (AP)

light on the case. In the last 18 months, up to 20 Twin Cities men of Somali descent are believed to have returned to their homeland, and at least three have turned up dead in Somalia, according to their families.

Isse pleaded guilty in April to federal charges that he provided support to terrorists and has been cooperating with the FBI’s investigation, according to the court documents.

His attorney, Paul Engh, said in a June filing that Isse and other young Somalis were recruited at a house of worship to fight in Somalia. Prosecutors say Isse admitted that he trained with terrorists in Somalia and helped build a terrorist training camp.

via Somali man’s family says he’s not a terrorist – TwinCities.com.

Two Indicted In Minnesota on Somali Terror Charges

A federal grand jury in Minneapolis indicted two men on Monday on charges of conspiracy and aiding terrorism overseas, according to court papers.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune said on Monday that one of the men, Salah Osman Ahmed, 26, is of Somali descent and lived in a Minneapolis suburb.

According to the indictment, Ahmed and Abdifatah Yusuf Isse were charged with two counts of providing material support to terrorists “and resources, namely personnel including themselves,” and conspiring “to kill, kidnap, and maim and injure persons outside of the United States” between September 2007 and December 2008.

Ahmed was also charged with two counts of making false statements about a flight he took from Minneapolis to Amsterdam on December 6, 2007, and bound for Somalia.

Ahmed “stated that he did not know anyone on his flight to Somalia in December 2007 when, in fact, he traveled to Somalia together with an individual he knew so that they could fight jihad in Somalia,” the indictment said.

via Two indicted in Minnesota on Somali terror charges – Yahoo! News.

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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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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Al Qaeda Urges Somali Pirates To Attack Ships

A senior Saudi Arabian al Qaeda operative has called on Somali jihadists to step up their attacks on “crusader” forces at sea in the pirate-infested Gulf of Aden, and on land in neighboring Djibouti, which hosts France’s largest military base in Africa.

“To our steadfast brethren in Somalia, take caution and prepare yourselves,” Sa’id Ali Jabir Al Khathim Al Shihri aka Abu Sufian al-Azdi says in a new audiotape acquired by CBS News. “Increase your strikes against the crusaders at sea and in Djibouti.”

Shihri warns Somali militants against a conspiracy led by “the crusaders, the Jews and traitor Arab rulers,” to put an end to the Muslim extremists’ progress in Somalia.

[...]

It was the first clear sign since the U.S. and French navies thwarted recent pirate attacks in the Gulf of Aden that al Qaeda is trying to take advantage of anti-Western sentiment, and a ready supply of well-armed young men with access to boats and maritime skills, in the restive country.

Al Qaeda does have links to Islamic extremist groups operating in Somalia but, thus far, piracy and al Qaeda’s brand of terrorism have remained largely separate. The pirates in the Gulf of Aden have always sought ransom payments or loot — they have not been motivated by Islamic fundamentalism.

Source

U.S. Cargo Ship Evades Somali Pirate Attack

Defiant Somali pirates fired rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons at another U.S. cargo ship on Tuesday but failed to hijack it, officials said, just days after Navy SEALs rescued an American hostage after an earlier unsuccessful hijacking.

The brazen midday attack on the MV Liberty Sun in international waters off the African coast is further evidence that Somali pirates are back to business as usual. Pirates have seized four other ships with 60 hostages since sharpshooters killed three gunmen holding American freighter captain Richard Phillips. “No one can deter us,” one bandit boasted.

The Liberty Sun’s American crew was not injured but the vessel sustained unspecified damage in the attack, owner Liberty Maritime Corp. said in a statement Tuesday night.

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American Al-Qaeda Adam Gadahn Appears In New Video

An American Al-Qaeda member has urged followers to step up assistance to suicide bombers and other radical fighters, arguing that the West “has begun to stagger,” a group monitoring Al-Qaeda said.

Adam Gadahn, an American member of Al-Qaeda, made the appeal in a new video titled “How to Prevent a Repeat of the Gaza Holocaust,” which was released on jihadist forums on Sunday, after speculation that it would be released last week, according to SITE Intelligence Group.

[...]

In a reference to the economic crisis, Gadahn said that “the enemy, under the leadership of the unbelieving West, has begun to stagger and falter, and the results of his unabated bleeding have begun to show on his economies, which are on the brink of failure.”

He attributes the crisis to “the grace of Allah, and then, the huge sacrifices of your sons, the mujahideen, who are eager for you to stand by their side and reinforce them with money and men.”

Gadahn dismisses efforts by the administration of US President Barack Obama to mend fences with the Muslim world, arguing that nothing in the US approach has changed since the presidency of George W. Bush.

[...]

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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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