Somali-Americans Head to Africa for Jihad

Newsweek ran a story just a few days ago about some 20 young Somali-American men who lived in Minnesota, and recently vanished. These muslim men abandoned their communities and families, and seem to have linked up with some terrorist groups in Somalia. As you may or may not know, Somalia has been ravaged war and governments there seem to be in one day and out the other. From the article, describing the group the FBI believes the men were recruited by

Since al-Shabab is on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations, traveling to Somalia to train or fight with the group is illegal. But security officials involved in the investigation have a bigger concern—that a jihadist group able to enlist U.S. nationals to fight abroad might also be able to persuade Somali-Americans to act as sleeper agents here in the United States. Al-Shabab has no history of targeting the U.S. But the group has grown closer to Al Qaeda since the American-backed invasion of Somalia by Ethiopia in 2006. Al-Shabab has since been working with a number of non-Somali operatives wanted by the United States, including Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, an architect of the 1998 attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, according to intelligence officials.
It would almost be a sigh of relief to think that these men, willing and capable to serve in a terrorist militia, chose to head overseas instead of pursuing actions here. There was no hard evidence (at least available to the public) that these men were going to work with al-Shabab until reports of arrests in Somalia broke earlier this week, sparking notable concerns about American terrorists abroad. Some simple math yields the conclusion that there are more Americans from the Minneapolis area on the loose in Somalia, assisting the al-Qaeda linked group. Home-grown terror, hitting weak governments overseas. This is a problem.http://shotsonthehouse.com/?p=987