Somalis Fear Jihadists Luring Minnesota Youths Back to Fight

MINNEAPOLIS -- Burhaan Hassan was a fairly typical kid, the kind who asked his mother for $20 when he wanted to go see a movie on weekends. But on Nov. 4, while much of the world — including his single mother — was consumed by the historic U.S. presidential election, he and a handful of Somali-American teenagers quietly boarded a plane to Kenya, possibly en route to the front lines of a Jihad in Somalia.Hassan, 17, wasn’t working and couldn’t afford the expensive airfare, said his uncle, Hussein Samatar, an immigrant from Somalia who now runs the African Development Group of Minnesota. “We believe someone — some group — has paid for his ticket,” he said.Law enforcement agencies and community leaders fear that up to a dozen Twin Cities boys have been conscripted by a radical group to fight a Jihad in Somalia, a lawless country in the Horn of Africa.Special agent E. K. Wilson of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) office in Minneapolis wouldn’t confirm or deny the fate of the “missing boys,” as they are known in the community. He would only say that his agency is aware that an unspecified number of Somali youths have traveled from throughout the United States, including Minneapolis, to “potentially fight in Somalia.”Mysterious caseThe lack of specificity in the case has jolted the Somali community in Minnesota, estimated at more than 70,000 — the largest in North America. The FBI would neither identify the missing teenagers nor give details of their trips, even though its agents have repeatedly interviewed family members, associates and travel consultants who may have unwittingly sold tickets to unscrupulous recruiters.The FBI wouldn’t even confirm if a teenager whose remains the agency returned to his family last month was one of five suicide bombers who attacked government and foreign installations in Somalia, killing 24. Yet almost everyone in the community believes that 19-year-old Shirwa Ahmed, a University of Minnesota student, was indeed a culprit in those attacks.Still, an eerie question — how could this happen to us? — has rattled the Twin Cities Somali community for the past few weeks. While virtually no one denies that the community has been infiltrated by jihadist recruiters, exactly who is to blame for the missing boys is a matter of considerable controversy.Some activists blame Abubkar As-Saddique Islamic Center (AAIC), located just of Lake Street in south Minneapolis, for preaching intolerance to vulnerable young men. In addition to being the largest mosque in the Twin Cities, some of the missing teenagers, including Hassan, frequented its after-school and youth programs. more...http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=c5897eb71861fe572ddadf72194e61d1&from=rss