Concern Grows Over Recruitment of Somali Americans by Islamists

The suspected involvement of a young Seattle man in a suicide bombing last month has refocused attention on the recruitment of Somali Americans by Islamist extremists in Somalia and the growing role of al-Qaeda, U.S. counterterrorism officials said.
The FBI is investigating whether the American took part in a Sept. 17 twin truck bombing in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, which killed 21 people at an African Union peacekeeping base, law enforcement officials said. If confirmed, he would be the second U.S. citizen in the past year to have become a suicide bomber and at least the seventh radicalized U.S. youth to die after joining al-Shabab, an insurgent group seeking to topple Somalia's weak government, U.S. relatives and Somali activists said.
Overall, Shabab has sent dozens of Somali Americans and Muslim American converts through training conducted by elements of al-Qaeda's Pakistan-based terrorist network, National Counterterrorism Center Director Michael E. Leiter said last week.
Although al-Qaeda itself is under more pressure than at any time since 2001, the threat from affiliated groups such as Shabab is growing, said Leiter and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III. In particular, such groups are providing al-Qaeda a pipeline of American and European fighters whose passports would make it easier for them to travel undetected and potentially attack Western targets, current and former U.S. officials said.
"The role of returning foreign fighters to the United States changes the nature of the threat to the homeland," Mueller said in written testimony last week to a Senate hearing into the evolving terrorist threat inside the United States.
Leiter's statement singled out Shabab and Lashkar-i-Taiba, a Pakistan-based militant group accused in the commando-style attack on Mumbai in November that killed more than 170 people. The latter "could pose a direct threat" inside the United States, particularly in collusion with al-Qaeda, although its focus has been on India and Afghanistan, Leiter said in written testimony. ..more..http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/03/AR2009100302901.html?hpid=sec-nation