After Minneapolis, FBI Eyes Atlanta's Somalis

New America Media, News Report, Maggie Lee, Posted: Jun 24, 2009

Editor's Note: In a small town near Atlanta, the FBI and local law enforcement are looking for radical Islamist terrorists potentially trying to recruit the town's young Somali-Americans to fight a war in Africa. They are on alert since events in Minnesota linking radical Islamists to the disappearance of Somali youth from their communities, reports NAM contributor Maggie Lee.

CLARKSON, GA. -– In this small town on the edge of Atlanta, the FBI and local law enforcement are looking out for an alarming kind of crime: radical Islamist terrorists potentially trying to recruit the town's young Somali-Americans to fight a war in Africa. There is terrorist recruitment taking place already in Minnesota, said Clarkston police chief Tony J. Scipio. That's why his department and the FBI are looking for anything similar in the Somali-American community here in Clarkston. In Minneapolis, as many as 20 young men have been reported missing from their homes since last fall. They are thought to have been lured into the ranks of al-Shabaab in Somalia. That group got a terrorist designation from the U.S. State Department, which ties it to al-Qaeda, bombings, assassinations and attacks on peacekeepers. A powerful faction fighting Somalia's transitional government, al-Shabaab's agenda is extremely strict Sharia law. To fight potential recruiters, the Atlanta FBI has spent the last several months in what the agent-in-charge called an "outreach" program to Clarkston Somali-Americans, including mosque visits and community meetings. Supervisory special agent Andrew Young said radical violent Islamist recruiters use the same strategy as a street gang recruiter, or even a little league coach. "From what we know about recruiters, whether they're Islamic, drug gangs or the coach, they're looking for those kids who are looking for something deeper inside. To one it could be geopolitics. To one it could be a friendship. They're all looking for something," he explained. And terror recruiters are quickly becoming adept at online tactics, noted Young. "That's what we see as a trend hitting home,” he said. “We see a lot more Internet recruiting being targeted to our youth." If young people go to Somalia, the FBI's biggest worry is that they may return with dangerous souvenirs, like bomb-making or demolition skills and a radical anti-U.S. agenda. Atlanta's Somali-American community mushroomed after 1991 with arrivals of war refugees. Between 2000 and 2007 alone, the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement sent some 3,000 Somalis to Atlanta. Because so many suffered in the war, they're unlikely to see much appeal in returning to war, say Somali-American leaders in Clarkston.But the alleged Minneapolis recruits spent little or no time in war-ravaged Somalia or in refugee camps. That may make young people vulnerable to a dramatic, nationalistic appeal, according to one Georgia leader. "If al-Shabaab says, 'We're fighting Ethiopians,' then they'll have sympathy," declared Omar Shekhey, president of the Somali-American Community Center, a statewide umbrella group. ..more..http://news.ncmonline.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=0c35ffa6e64aac24f1d332f6b32e7d29