Somali suicide bomber from the heartland

MINNESOTA .. The remains were flown back from Somalia and buried in a small town 25km south of here. A simple Muslim funeral was held on a cold December day. It took sophisticated DNA testing conducted by the FBI to confirm that the bone fragments – all that was left after the bomb blast – belonged to Shirwa Ahmed, 27, a naturalised US citizen who had graduated from a nearby high school about a decade ago.
Few had questioned – at least not in a public way – why he had left mysteriously for his native country in 2007. But now his sombre homecoming had many asking the same thing: what drove him to become a suicide bomber? Since news spread of Ahmed’s death – the FBI says he was responsible for one of six blasts in two northern Somali cities in October, killing 30 – several other families have come forward to report their sons missing. Community leaders estimate that about 15 young men, many of them college students, have gone to Somalia. The FBI is investigating what it believes has been recruitment by al Shabaab, an Islamic militant group in Somalia with links to al Qa’eda...more..http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090323/FOREIGN/404816287/1040/