Young men vanish into Somalia, stirring fears of terrorist recruitment

Anguished Minnesota families say a group of seven youths who vanished on Nov. 4 may have gone to join an Islamist militia. They aren't the first to leave.
By Bob Drogin January 18, 2009
Reporting from Minneapolis -- Tall and lean, with a wispy mustache and shy smile, 17-year-old Burhan Hassan chalked up A's last fall as a senior at Roosevelt High School, vowing to become a doctor or lawyer.After school and on weekends, he studied Islam at the nearby Abubakar As-Saddique mosque. He joined its youth group."He wanted to go to Harvard," said his uncle Osman Ahmed. "That was his dream."Instead Hassan has gone to Somalia, the anarchic East African nation that his family fled when he was a toddler. On election day, Hassan and five other youths slipped away from their homes here, and anguished family members now say they may have joined a Taliban-style Islamic militia that U.S. authorities call a terrorist organization.The youths, who have U.S. passports, followed a well-trod trail from Minneapolis to Mogadishu. Another group took off in August. The FBI believes that over the last two years, 12 to 20 Minnesotans have gone to Somalia.
As a result, a joint terrorism task force led by the FBI is scrambling to determine if extremist Islamic groups are seeking recruits here in the nation's largest Somali community -- as well as in San Diego, Seattle, Boston and other cities."We're aware that these guys have traveled from Minneapolis and other parts of the country," said E.K. Wilson, the FBI spokesman here. "Our concern obviously is they've been recruited somehow to fight or to train as terrorists."Topping their concern is the case of Shirwa Ahmed, a 27-year-old former Minneapolis resident who went to Somalia in 2007 -- and who may be what Wilson called "the first occasion of a U.S. citizen suicide bomber."MORE..http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/africa/la-na-missing18-2009jan18,0,7782853.story
Dream of Harvard evaporates amid Somali civil war
http://www.startribune.com/local/minneapolis/37802124.html