World does not take Somali problem seriously: Ugandan President : Uganda president makes historic visit to Somali capital

President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda paid a working visit to Mogadishu, Somalia

MOGADISHU: Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni appealed on Sunday for more international support to bolster the African Union force in Somalia during a brief visit to the capital Mogadishu.

Museveni met President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed at the airport along with Somalia’s new Prime Minister Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed and some members of a fresh, streamlined cabinet that was approved by parliament on Saturday.
“We want more troops, from Uganda or from anywhere in Africa. Uganda is a country of 33 million people so we could mobilise 3 million people. But who will pay for it?” said Museveni, who faces a presidential election in February.
“International support is not enough. They don’t take the Somali problem seriously,” said the former rebel, who visited Mogadishu wearing combat fatigues.
Uganda and Burundi provide all the 7,200 African Union soldiers in Mogadishu propping up a Western-backed government that has failed to stamp its authority on much more than a slice of the capital.
Two hard-line Islamist insurgent groups control the rest of Mogadishu and much of southern and central Somalia. The African Union troops have so far prevented the rebels from toppling the weak government by defending key sites.
“I came to check on our troops and also to consult his excellency (President Ahmed). I am very pleased they formed a new government, have a new Prime Minister and are united. Our troops’ morale is very high.”

Foreign jihadists
The AU and the seven-nation east African Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) have said it could take about 20,000 troops to help quell the insurgents in Somalia, a country without stable central government for nearly 20 years.
Uganda has said it could supply the whole force but wants Western nations and others to help foot the bill.
While there have been many pledges of international support for the Somali government, incessant infighting and rampant corruption have not helped its cause, while government soldiers have missed out on salaries for months.
Western nations say the Horn of African country has become a safe haven for jihadists training to launch attacks in neighboring countries and further afield.
Somali insurgents linked to Al-Qaeda killed at least 76 people watching the soccer World Cup final in Uganda’s capital with bomb blasts, in retaliation for the Ugandan troop presence.
The chaos in Somalia has also allowed piracy to flourish off shore. The number of successful hijackings by Somali pirates was at a five-year high in the first nine-months of 2010.
Somalia’s new prime minister, who has been in office for about a month, plans to recruit 8,000 government troops to push the rebels and foreign fighters in their ranks out of Mogadishu.
“My first, second and third priority is improving security. In the first phase we are going to recruit 8,000 government troops,” Mohamed told Reuters in an interview last week.
“Our initial target will be to drive the rebels from the capital Mogadishu and then the rest of the country. We shall not talk to foreign jihadists ... who came here to harass our people and our country,” the prime minister said. By REUTERS
Uganda president makes historic visit to Somali capital

Seattle's Somali community fears backlash from bomb plot

Life on the front line in a city laid bare by war endless war

KLAAS VAN DIJKEN

An African Union soldier in Mogadishu: the force is accused of shelling civilian areas  More pictures 

Daniel Howden, in the first of a series of dispatches from Mogadishu, reports on the battle to defeat Islamist militants

 Monday, 29 November 2010

The sea breeze carries the sound of Mogadishu's dawn chorus of munitions as far as the sand dunes high above the Indian Ocean. On the horizon, the grey hull of a foreign warship patrols for pirates; inland, mortars thud out from the African Union (AU) positions around the old harbour and volleys of automatic fire reply from the direction of al-Shabaab's stronghold at the notorious Bakara Market. The exchanges are interspersed with the sharp crack of sniper fire.

In a seemingly endless war, the battle for the shattered Somali capital has reached another turning point. In among the warren of ruined buildings the African peacekeepers, sent here to protect Somalia's weak UN-backed government from the onslaught of Islamic extremist militias, are inching forward.

The frontline is reached through a series of skeletal hotels, once grand seaside residences where soldiers' tents are now pitched in bare concrete shells. The battle is being fought "building by building" according to Lt-Col Francis Chemo, a commander with the Ugandan contingent, and the opposing lines are only "metres apart".

The narrow coastal strip from the airport to the seaport and the presidential palace at Villa Somalia that has been the sole territory under the control of the transitional federal government (TFG) is expanding. But the effort to wrest the city from the control of al-Shabaab fighters has been fatally undermined by the theft of international donor money meant to pay for Somalia's own army.

Where the fighting is most intense north of the bombed out Jubba Hotel the AU forces give way and a ragged-trousered Somali army starts to appear. This is the government force – trumpeted by the international community – that is meant to overcome al-Shabaab.

While hundreds of millions of pounds in military aid has been pledged to prevent a al-Shabaab takeover of the Horn of Africa nation, an unpaid army of government forces is fighting, dying and defecting in Mogadishu. 

In a bid to prop up the government of President Sheikh Sharif Sheik Ahmed, the EU is training 1,000 Somali fighters in Uganda and the US has donated 40 tons of weaponry. However, Western diplomats complain that much of this has gone straight over to the extremists due to the ineffective and corrupt TFG.

Abdi Rahman is typical of the frontline soldiers in the war against al-Shabaab. Twenty-one years old, with only half a uniform, he hasn't been paid in the six months since returning from training in Uganda. He says he joined to "fight the terrorists," but needs money to survive.

Ahmed Hussein Hilolwe, 24, a government soldier who was hit in the leg in heavy fighting with al-Shabaab last month, says that it is four months since he was last paid. Many of his colleagues can't wait, he says, so "they sell their weapons" or defect to al-Shabaab.

Ahmed Mohamed Turyeye joined the government forces two years ago and says that he is already owed15-months' wages. "Some of us are joining the opposition," hesaid. "The money we are getting is not enough to fight a war."

A UN official with 15 years experience in Somalia confirmed that an account containing $8million is on standby waiting for the government in Mogadishu to provide an accurate list of names. Without that payroll, no more money will be released. Somali's new prime minister Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed admitted that past administrations had taken the money for themselves. "Soldiers haven't been paid because of corruption and mismanagement," he told The Independent.

In the past two years, millions of dollars in military aid has been siphoned off in payments to so-called "ghost soldiers" – fake names on government rolls – while the real army remains largely penniless. With its own security forces in disarray an AU force made up of Ugandan and Burundian troops has acted as a last line of defence for the TFG against Islamic militias who have long held most of the capital.

The AU force has risen to 8,000 troops this month with a further 4,000 expected by March next year, according to Western diplomats in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. A Ramadan offensive by al-Shabaab failed to gain ground and may have fatally weakened the militia, which is riven by its own internal divisions.

AU spokesman, Major Barigye Bahoku, insists that more than half the territory of the city and 80 per cent of the population is currently under government control and that the tide has turned. Privately, ministers admit that the TFG are present in only eight of Mogadishu's 18 districts and population numbers are impossible to estimate in a war zone.

Yesterday, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni became the first head of state to visit Somalia in 20 years and used the occasion to appeal for US funds to expand that force to 20,000 troops. He questioned the international focus on protecting shipping off the Somali coast and said the money would be better spent on land.

"The international community don't take the Somali problem seriously, they're in the ocean having a nice time," he complained. Ugandan and Burundian commanders on the ground insist that with more troops they could "capture and hold" larger sections of the city. Urban warfare in Mogadishu is played out against an almost unimaginable landscape of destruction.

The al-Shabaab try to match the superior firepower of the AU forces with a battery of suicide bombers, snipers, mortar fire, roadside bombs and improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

"They have their tactics," says Ugandan commander, Lt-Col Chemo. "And they don't care if they die."

His forces are camped in the ruins of old villas and apartment blocks built when this was still an Italian colony. The few remaining walls in these shattered buildings offer a glimpse of the lives of al-Shabaab fighters that held them only weeks ago. Crude graffiti litters the stairwells with naked women and assault rifles drawn among vertical lines of Islamic slogans.

A warning notice has been posted in red ink on the wall, it reads: "If you get a call from these numbers don't pick up!" A Ugandan officer explains that a soldier reportedly died at the port after receiving a call from an al-Shabaab operative using a mysterious audio weapon. Others dismiss it as nonsense. But the fear of an unseen enemy has given rise to bizarre rumours among the soldiers.

The toll on the city's civilian population has been even more immense. According to figures from the Mogadishu ambulance service, 2,170 civilians have died this year in the fighting. Ali Muse, the head of the independent ambulance service, denied reports that he had blamed the bulk of these deaths on the African Union Mission for Somalia (Amisom) forces shelling residential neighbourhoods, but there is mounting concern that the African peacekeepers are losing the battle for Somali hearts and minds.

"Civilians live in Amisom and government areas as well as rebel areas, so residents die in the exchange of shells," said Muse. "I cannot know the percentage but what I know is that the exchange of shells kill civilians in all places."

Last Tuesday the AU force issued its first ever public apology after two civilians were killed and six more wounded after soldiers "unintentionally" opened fire on passers-by.

Libaan Dahir Hassan was one of the victims. A seven-year-old boy, he has a piece of shrapnel lodged in his spine and was being operated on yesterday by Ugandan doctors at the Amisom base hospital.

Schoolteacher Abdullahi Amin had to have his leg amputated after being hit in the same incident. He said the AU soldiers were in a convoy in a peaceful area when they suddenly opened fire on civilians for no reason.

Abdulkarim Ali Hersi, in the bed across from him, who had his leg shattered by a bullet while walking home from school, said: "The Amisom troops were just firing on all sides."

Abdulaziz Abdullahi Nur, whose wife was also wounded, said it was not an isolated incident and said he counted dozens of artillery shells being fired "morning, afternoon and night" from Amisom positions into civilians areas.

AU officials have denied targeting civilians or firing into residential neighbourhoods and insist this is al-Shabaab propaganda. Those who can't leave move from one area to the next seeking shelter. Every day reports of executions, mutilations and rape trickle out of al-Shabaab-controlled areas.

There is certainly no shortage of recruits for the new Somali army. At the Jazira camp, ranks of weaponless volunteers are yelled at and beaten with canes as they attempt marching drills in the scalding sun. Dozens more recruits wait to sign up nearby, many of them barely teenagers. When Fadima Hassan Ismail reaches the registrar he gives his birth date as 1992. The AU soldiers laugh and point at his boyish face, but he is signed up anyway. An older man shrugs and says the boy is actually 13. "But his parents were killed by al-Shabaab. He wants to fight."

Background to failure

Somalia is the world's most failed state. A near constant civil war has raged across its southern and central regions for two decades.

At sea this lawlessness has been felt internationally thanks to a surge in piracy. On land there has been no central administration since 1991.

While a UN-recognised transitional government remained in exile, power passed from warlords to a brief period of relative stability under the leadership of the Islamic Courts Union in 2006. That experiment was ended by a US-backed invasion force from neighbouring Ethiopia, which feared the creation of a hardline Islamic regime on its doorstep.

Ethiopia's presence in the country united warring factions against the occupation and spurred the creation of extremist militias – the most powerful of which was al-Shabaab.

Since Ethiopia withdrew its forces, the international community has turned in desperation to Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, the same leader of the Islamic Courts they had removed by force.

Calling him a "visionary" and a "moderate", they helped to put him in charge of the transitional federal government which returned to Mogadishu. But a promised grand offensive against al-Shabaab quickly stalled.

Tales from Mogadishu

Anna Diriya, 20

Among the marching lines of new recruits at Mogadishu's Jazira training base was a skinny girl drilling with the young men. "My uncle and my brother were both killed by al-Shabaab," and she could fight them "just like the men". She has joined about 1,000 recruits, many of whom will be sent for EU-funded military training in Uganda.

Abdi Rahman, 21

Dressed in a fake designer T-shirt and high-heeled sandals, the young soldier's teeth are stained green from chewing the stimulant khat. He

was trained in Uganda but has not been paid since coming back to Somalia six months ago. He has not defected to the al-Shabaab because they are "terrorists". Hundreds of other young men have swapped sides, though.

Saida Sheikh Mahmoud, 37

An unemployed nurse living in an IDP camp, she had to flee her home to escape al-Shabaab. "When they see you coming from a government area, they say you are a spy and they can kill you," she says. "If the people were given guns, they would rise up against al-Shabaab. They have pushed us against the wall like the warlords did before them." Independent

Portland's Christmas Tree Plot: Who is Mohamed Mohamud? Analysis: Somali terror suspects multiplying in U.S. :: Portland suspect: typical teen, dedicated jihadist?

Booking photo of Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, provided by the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office November 27, 2010. The Somali-born teenager was arrested on Friday for attempting to detonate what he thought was a car bomb at a Christmas Tree lighting ceremony in Oregon.

Multnomah County Sheriff's Office / Reuters

update on ANOTHER HAWIYE-American accused of plotting to bomb Oregon tree-lighting event.:Oregon bomb-plot suspect wanted 'spectacular show'

Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, a Somali-born U.S. citizen, is too young to drink but apparently old enough to pursue jihad — the version preached by al-Qaeda. On Friday night he was taken into custody after authorities alleged he tried to ignite a phony bomb on a Portland, Oregon street near a packed public Christmas tree lighting ceremony. What he had actually done was detonate his own arrest in an FBI sting.
The FBI's detailed affidavit portrays Mohamud as hell-bent on bombing the popular annual event in Portland's Pioneer Courthouse Square. The FBI complaint details how the undercover agents proposed other less lethal ways Mohamud could help the jihadi cause besides bombing, but the young man was steadfast. Indeed, the affidavit contains virulent quotes allegedly from Mohamud. "I want whoever is attending that event to leave, to leave either dead or injured"; "You know what I like to see? Is when I see the enemy of Allah then you know their bodies are torn everywhere"; "It's gonna be a fireworks show... a spectacular show... New York Times will give it two thumbs up"; "Do you remember when 9/11 happened when those people were jumping from skyscrapers... I thought that was awesome." It seemed to be another case of a young American radicalized by Islamist extremism. (See the influence of the Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.)
But Mohamud seems to have been almost as angry at his family. The FBI affidavit never explains what prompted the Bureau to put Mohamud on the no-fly list, which prevented him from traveling to Alaska last June and got him an FBI interrogation instead, where he admitted that he had originally been planning to go to Yemen where he knew someone. It does say however that Mohamud later emailed the undercover FBI operative to say, "I was betrayed by my family, I was supposed to travel last year but Allah had decreed that I stay here longer." And according to the FBI report, in a goodbye video Mohamud recorded on Nov. 4 after a practice detonation, he had a specific message "to my parents, who held me back from jihad in the cause of Allah, I say to them, if you make allies with the enemy, then Allah's power will ask you about that on the day of judgment." (See the case of the would-be Broadway bomber.)
Mohamud's mother and father and his two sisters have remained silent since his arrest. (The Oregonian identified the parents as Mariam and Osman Barre; they reportedly split up a few years ago.) However, one prominent member of the Somali community in Portland (estimated to number 8,000) says a relative played some role in helping to put the FBI on the young man's trail — though that relative was almost certainly unaware of the scale it would assume. "Before this happened, the father informed Homeland Security and the FBI that something was going on with his son," claims Isgow Mohamed, the executive director of the Northwest Somali Community Organization who says he knows Mohamud's family well and had been in touch with them. "This a good family. The father in an engineer at Intel! This is not somebody who is on public assistance. He is a family man, a businessman, a religious man, a soccer player!"
Mohamed said emphatically that Mohamud's alleged plot should not be seen as representative of Somali Americans. "First of all we're really sorry, we do not support terror," he told TIME. "We came to live here and not bother anyone. We left a civil war!" Mohamed says he believes that Mohamud was influenced by things on the internet, but says that if anyone in the Somali community in Portland did as well, "We are not going to hide them. We are also Americans!" (There does not seem to be a link as well to Somalia's al-Shabab, the militant group that says it is allied with al-Qaeda and which some security experts fear may be trying to expand its influence beyond the Horn of Africa.) (Is Somalia's al-Shabab a global or a local movement?)
The FBI document indicates that federal agents asked for and received court authorization to begin surveillance of Mohamud and to track back his email. It is not yet clear what prompted the FBI to make the request — though family concerns that Mohamud was going to fly off to join terrorists might conceivably have set off the initial alarms. Indeed, relatives may have been concerned for a couple of years. Mohamud once attempted to get a visa to travel to Pakistan during a family visit to Britain but failed because his passport had not been valid. The affidavit says that Mohamud started thinking about jihad and becoming a mujahideen at the age of 15, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, when he heard someone talking about martyrs. He allegedly said that he "didn't even have to hear anything else... This is a decision that I made... and if you don't sacrifice your own kids, when will victory come you know...."
According to the Associated Press, "agents began investigating Mohamud after receiving a tip from someone who was concerned about the teenager." Responding to a query from TIME, the Department of Justice would not confirm or deny whether Mohamud's father helped put him on the FBI's radar, saying only that "the FBI pursued multiple investigative techniques in this case and the affidavit references certain communications that took place as early as Aug. 2009. There is no factual allegation in the statement of probable cause regarding any tip from the community, and therefore it would be inappropriate to make any public comment."
If Mohamud's father did play a role in the case, it would be achingly familiar to the part played by the wealthy father of Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab, the young Nigerian who tried to blow up a plane over Detroit last year and who is now popularly known as the underwear bomber. Abdulmuttalab's father, a banker, allegedly went to the U.S. embassy in London to warn them of his son when he became alarmed at the young man's dalliance with jihadi ideology. (See the underwear bomber's privileged background.)
After receiving court permission, the Feds found Mohamud's August 2009 email contact with an unnamed "Unindicted Associate" who turned out to be in a volatile northwestern region of Pakistan. By December, Mohamud was allegedly discussing joining the man, as the affidavit says, "to prepare for violent jihad." (When he was stopped from flying to Alaska in June 2010, the FBI asked Mohamud if he knew anyone in Yemen and the young man named the unindicted associate he was in email contact with.) Mohamud then made an attempt to contact a second "Unindicted Associate" to plan his trip but messed up the email address by confusing it with a password. The FBI would later use this confusion to set up a similar email to lure Mohamud into the sting.
When he finally focused on Portland as a target, Mohamud allegedly told the FBI that he wasn't worried about U.S. security getting in his way because law enforcement does not "see it as a place where anything will happen. People say you know, why anybody want to do something in Portland, you know. It's on the west coast, it's in Oregon; and Oregon's like you know, nobody ever thinks about it." Asked what if the plan went badly, Mohamud said he wasn't worried "because if you were going to [Paradise] you wouldn't have to worry, right?" But he would eventually choose to "detonate" the car bomb by a remote cellphone call because, according to the affidavit, "martyrdom required the 'highest level of faith.' He was concerned that after living in the United States and attending college he may not have that 'high faith.'"
On Nov. 26, after a final inspection of what he believed would be an "amazing" bomb, Mohamud was asked once again by the undercover agent if he wanted to go through with it. He allegedly said yes and reportedly smiled when he heard a TV report that 25,000 were expected in Pioneer Courthouse Square that evening. But when the time came, Mohamud repeatedly dialed the designated trigger number and no explosion occured. Federal agents came shortly afterward to take away a kicking Mohamud, who shouted "Allahu Akhbar" — Arabic for "God is great." The affidavit said there was probable cause to charge him with attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction. time

Portland's Somali community unites to condemn alleged Pioneer Courthouse Square bomb plot

Bomb suspect to classmate: 'I hate Americans' 

Portland suspect: typical teen, dedicated jihadist?

 

My Take on this scambag

 Yusof Wanly, imam at the Salman Alfarisi Islamic Center, said Mohamud was a normal student who went to athletic events, drank the occasional beer and was into rap music and culture....

My Take :
The two groups that join the terrorist camps are the hyper religious who seemingly never leave the Mosque and the indulgers of sin who are looking for a quick way to heaven.  born again Jehadest    And the Portland Hawiye  faggot clearly falls in the second camp.

Analysis: Somali terror suspects multiplying in U.S. 

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Somali shop owner charged with lying about son with possible terrorist link

 

President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda paid a working visit to Mogadishu, Somalia

TF.SF  Somalia ---November 28, 2010) Less than 24 hours after the Somali Parliament gave a vote of confidence to the new lean cabinet nominated by Prime Minister Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, H.E. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni President of the Republic of Ugandapaid a working visit to Mogadishu Somalia and met with his counterpart H.E. President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, accompanied by the Speaker of the Somali Parliament, Hon. Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan, the Prime Minister, H.E. Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed. Also present at the meeting was H.E. Abdulkareem H. Jama, Minister of Information, Post & Telecommunication.

President Museveni who was accompanied by officers of the UPDF and his staff congratulated the leadership of the Somali Government for the successful conclusion of the political process that culminated in the Parliament providing a vote of confidence to the new Somali Cabinet. He also assured them that the Government and People of Uganda stand by their brethren in Somalia and will continue to support them in any way they can.

President Sharif thanked H.E. President Museveni for the historic visit which was the first by a head of state in close to 20 years and the constant support and sacrifice the people of Uganda make to assist their brothers in Somalia. The two Presdients discussed ways of deepening the already strong relationship between the two countries as well as the cooperating in marshalling the support necessary for the new Somali Government to fulfill its duties.

Portland's Somali community unites to condemn alleged Pioneer Courthouse Square bomb plot

View full sizeMotoya Nakamura, The Oregonian Imam Mikal Shabazz, director of the Oregon Islamic Chaplain Organization (left), and Shahriar Ahmed, president of the Bilal Mosque Association in Beaverton, held a news conference Saturday at Portland City Hall to condemn the alleged bombing attempt at Pioneer Courthouse Square on Friday.

After an attempted terrorist attack was foiled Friday in Portland, Ahmed Ali  wants only one thing: to tell the world that the portrait alleged attacker Mohamed Osman Mohamud  painted of the Somali community is far from the truth.

"He ruined it for everybody," said Ali, 24, of Portland, as he stood outside Hashi Halal Market,  a Somali grocery store owned by his brother in North Portland. "We are against it. Our religion says we cannot kill innocent people. This is the reason we left Somalia."

As news spread of Mohamud's alleged plan to detonate a bomb during Portland's annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony at Pioneer Courthouse Square, it sent shock waves throughout Portland's Somali community. Many, like Ali, asked themselves how a teenager from a well-known and progressive family could have chosen such a dark path.

"This is a family everyone looks up to," Ali said. "They are the most educated, modern Somalis. I bet this is their worst nightmare, too."

Several at the grocery store said Mohamud was quiet and mostly stayed to himself. Store owner Omar Hashi  said he remembers when the teenager was a small boy. Ali said Mohamud's father is heavily involved in the community and his mother does not wear a hijab, which signifies the family's modern lifestyle.

Amin Dawid,  who was standing outside the store with Hashi on Saturday afternoon, said he doesn't believe Mohamud understood the opportunities he had as a teenager living in the United States.

"He fell into something wrong," said Dawid, of Portland. "We stand with the family, but we reject all kind of violence."

Ali added, "It's anti-Muslim and anti-Somali." In addition, the Somali community in Portland and others around the country have expressed frustration that Mohamud's alleged actions will paint a negative picture of the city's Somali community, which is estimated to number about 8,000.

Omar Jamal,  first secretary of the Somali mission for the United Nations, condemned the plot and said Somali communities across the country are in shock and disbelief.

"We don't want it to reflect the majority of the Somali community," Jamal said Saturday from New York. "We are all in this together on this war on terrorism."

After Mohamud was arrested Friday, Arthur Balizan,  FBI special agent in charge of Oregon, called local Muslim leaders to tell them of the situation.

"There was a tone of apprehension," Balizan said, "and also a tone of sadness that this had happened."

Saturday evening, two leaders of the Portland-area Islamic community led a news conference outside Portland City Hall denouncing the alleged plot and praising authorities who stopped it. Imam Mikal Shabazz  of the Oregon Islamic Chaplain Organization, standing with Shahriar Ahmed  of Beaverton's Bilal Mosque Association, described his initial reaction to the news as "shock" mixed with "relief."

"We condemn strongly any act of violence, any act that would target innocent people," Shabazz said, speaking on behalf of Portland's Islamic community.

Local Muslims and Muslim organizations had received threats by Saturday evening, Ahmed said. But he downplayed those threats as "inconsequential," saying the Portland incident doesn't have to affect sometimes-strained relations between Muslims and non-Muslims.

"Tensions are what you make of them," Ahmed said. "There is no point in increasing tension. There is no point in flaring things beyond what they need to be."

Both men urged observers to let the legal process play out before jumping to conclusions about Mohamud.

The attempted bombing has spread fear throughout Portland's Somali community. The grocery store, usually a bustling meeting place on a Saturday afternoon was eerily quiet as few shoppers milled around. Ali said most Somalis in the community aren't leaving their homes.

Ali, who has lived in Portland since 1999 and gained his U.S. citizenship earlier this month, said his joy has been overshadowed because he fears racial profiling and assumes people will look at him twice as he walks down the street.

"I never thought this would happen," he said. "Portland is the safest place."

Jamal said that though Somali teenagers living in Ohio and Minnesota have been recruited by terrorist organizations, such happenings have been virtually nonexistent in Portland.

"There are kids in Minneapolis who have been radical," Jamal said. Portland "is the least active city."

Jamal said he believes that close to 20 Somali youths have been recruited from Minnesota and sent to Somalia to fight for terrorist organizations in the past several years. Often, he said, the younger generation is recruited and financed by elders.

"At some point in his life, someone must have put this threat idea in his mind," Jamal said, speaking about Mohamud, the suspect behind Friday's alleged plot. "We want to know who that is. We want to deal with the root of the problem."

Jamal said establishing good relationships between U.S. Somali communities and the rest of the country is key.

"We have to make them believe that this is not a war on Muslims," he said. Several at the grocery store on Saturday expressed support for Mohamud's family, and Ali insists business will eventually pick up again, but he says it will take much longer for the community to feel accepted and safe in Portland again.

"It's going to be different now," he said. "It will bring the community together because we'll be there for each other."

Portland Mayor Sam Adams said he, the police chief and Commissioner Amanda Fritz will be doing outreach to leadership in the Somali community.

The mayor said that he had "trust in Portlanders' sense of fairness" in dealing with the alleged Somali plotter.

"Bad actions by one member of any group does not and should not be generalized or applied more widely to other members of that same group," he said. "Otherwise, as the biggest racial group in Portland, we European Americans would be in deep trouble." Oregon Live

US teenager pleads not guilty to Christmas 'bomb plot' Spooking the Terrorists – and Ourselves A Somali teen, lured into 'holy war'

 update  US teenager pleads not guilty to Christmas 'bomb plot'

update A Somali teen, lured into 'holy war'

Arrest of Somali-American may tell us as much about the FBI as Al Qaeda.

(Page 1 of 2)

Mauthnomah County Sheriff's Office-AP

Mohamed Osman Mohamud. Click to view our photos of Al Qaeda America.

Photos - Al Qaeda America, The Newest Breed of Traitor

Every time FBI undercover operatives seduce a dim-witted wannabe terrorist with promises of jihadi glory, there’s a tendency among the civil liberties crowd and the hate-all-government contingent to see the aspiring bomber as a victim. So the Feds took no chances with the court of public opinion when they put their case together against Mohamed Osman Mohamud, the 19-year-old Somali-American who planned to blow up a car bomb in the middle of a crowded Christmas tree-lighting celebration in Portland, Ore., on Friday night.

In the lead-up to the event the undercover operatives kept asking Mohamud if it bothered him that he’d be killing a whole lot of little kids and they kept telling him it would be okay to back away from the plot. According to the FBI affidavit filed with the court, Mohamud said he just wanted a “huge mass that will...be attacked in their own element with their families celebrating the holidays.”
The Feds didn’t make the arrest until the bomb was in place (a dud they’d built themselves), and Mohamud had actually made the call on his cell phone that he apparently believed would set it off.  So, if we can judge from the FBI version of the case, it looks like Mohamud is facing life imprisonment, and he’ll probably get it.  But does that really make us safer?
In this instance, yes. When it comes to “home-grown terror” plots and FBI stings, there is a great divide between those would-be jihadis who think they can do everything they want to do with a few local buddies and those who make contact with the pros in Pakistan, Yemen or elsewhere overseas. The second category is much more dangerous. Mohamud was somewhere in between.
He also comes from a subset of angry young men – disaffected Somalis in the West – that Al Qaeda and its affiliates are known to be targeting for recruitment. A Taliban source who spent time in the wilds of Waziristan with several Qaeda figures last year tells NEWSWEEK’s Sami Yousafzai that his Qaeda friends have vowed that their efforts to bring their war back to Western soil will never end and pledged that “there will be a successful attack very soon.” The same source told Yousafzai “the large numbers of Somalis living in the West have caught the recruiting masters’ eye.”
What sting operations like this do, at a minimum, is send a psychological message to would-be jihadis that anyone they contact to join holy war abroad, and anyone they work with to bring terror back to America, may be a double agent, and that communications are so heavily monitored that any e-mail they send looking for jihadi advice is likely to attract the attention of the Feds.
So far so good. Sowing distrust among the bad guys is a vital element in the disruption of terrorist plots and organizations. But one risk as the FBI cranks out these sting operations (there have been dozens in the last few years), is that the cases will create a false impression of what these would-be terrorists really want to do, and thus distort the way we analyze the enemy’s thinking.

A case in point is the arrest last month of a Pakistani-born suburbanite in northern Virginia who allegedly participated in a plan to bomb the Washington, D.C. Metro. What the 34-year-old computer-science graduate, husband and father, Farooque Ahmed, really fantasized about doing was joining Taliban-allied fighters in Afghanistan. He didn’t get far. From start to finish, the guys he thought were his co-conspirators were actually undercover agents. It appears from the available court documents that the Metro plot could have been the undercover operatives’ idea as much as Ahmed’s, and if that’s true, then are terrorists really planning to bomb the subway in Washington, or is that just a fantasy of the Feds? The Farooque Ahmed case doesn’t get us much closer to an answer, and probably doesn’t make us much safer.

In this new Oregon plot, Mohamud managed to e-mail people in Pakistan who are, indeed, suspected terror trainers – and whose communications clearly have been tapped. The Feds watched Mohamud’s e-mails as he was handed off from one Pakistani contact to another. Then he was dropped by the real bad guys. Presumably, they didn’t trust him. That’s when the Feds moved in, masquerading as new terrorist contacts, and looking to see if Mohamud would go all the way with a domestic bombing, which he did.

Mohamud sounds like a mad dog, and putting him out of action is probably a good thing any way you cut it. But the real impact of this case is to tell anyone thinking of carrying out violent jihad, abroad or at home, that Big Brother, er, Uncle Sam is watching. Like so much in the shadow land of terror-counterterror, that message is at once comforting and discomfiting.

Christopher Dickey, Newsweek’s Mideast Editor and Paris Bureau chief, is the author most recently of Securing the City: Inside America’s Best Counterterror Force—The NYPD.

 Interesting piece from
NEWSWEEK 

Saudi Authorities Dismantle 19 Al Qaeda Affiliated Terrorist Cells, Arresting 149 :AQAP and Al-Shabaab Alliance

Saudi Authorities Dismantle 19 Al Qaeda Affiliated Terrorist Cells, Arresting 149

An Emerging Terrorist Threat: (includes printerbomb plot): http://bit.ly/epgHNS

Affidavit: Woman sent $800 to Somali terror group

 
 update on California woman accused of aiding Somali terrorists:The Jihadist Next Door :San Diego woman charged with aiding Somalian terrorist group.
SAN DIEGO -- A woman charged in San Diego with aiding a Somali terrorist group is accused of sending $800 to two fighters in the organization.
The San Diego Union-Tribune reports an unsealed search warrant affidavit states that Nima Ali Yusuf was recorded on several phone calls arranging to send cash between January and July.
The 24-year-old is accused of conspiring in California and elsewhere to aid al-Shabab, an al-Qaida-linked militia trying to create an Islamic state in Somalia.
Authorities say Yusuf sent the money in small amounts of $50 or $100.
She was the fourth person charged in the past month in San Diego with helping al-Shabab. The others are accused of helping raise money and route funds to the radical Islamist group.

ceremony at Villa Somalia – cabinet Minister orn in :News Analysis: What lies ahead for the new Somali government?

 update { News Analysis: What lies ahead for the new Somali government?
update on Somali lawmakers pass proposed Cabinet
 (Mogadishu, Somalia, November 27, 2010) (TF.SF)

Somali Parliament approved today Prime Minister Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed’s new lean cabinet consisting of 18 ministries.
In a well organized ceremony at the Presidency - Villa Somalia – attended by the President, Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, the Speaker of Parliament and the Prime Minister, the new ministers as will as ministers of state and vice ministers were sworn in.

Somali lawmakers pass proposed Cabinet

MOGADISHU, Somalia –  Somalia's parliament has passed the proposed Cabinet of the country's new prime minister.

Parliament Speaker Sharif Hassan Sheik Aden read out the results Saturday, saying that 251 lawmakers voted for the Cabinet in a session held in the capital, Mogadishu. He says 92 voted against it.

Saturday's endorsement will offer Prime Minister Mohamed Abdullahi  Mohamed, a Somali-American, an opportunity to focus on his programs as his government's term will end in August next year.

Earlier this month, Mohamed appointed an 18-member Cabinet drawn from technocrats living outside the country, down from the 39-member Cabinet of his predecessor.

The new Cabinet has been praised by the international community, but local politicians

accused Mohamed of reducing some clans' influence and tapping strangers to Somali politics.

Source: AP

ANOTHER HAWIYE-American accused of plotting to bomb Oregon tree-lighting event.:Oregon bomb-plot suspect wanted 'spectacular show'

F.B.I. Says Oregon Suspect Planned Attack of ‘Grand Scale’

Oregon bomb-plot suspect wanted 'spectacular show'

Stay Tuned for More Details,

(CNN) -- A 19-year-old has been arrested in connection with a plot to detonate a vehicle bomb at an annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland, Oregon, on Friday evening, the Justice Department announced.
Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Somalia, was arrested on suspicion of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. He is a resident of Corvallis, Oregon, and a student at Oregon State University, according to the FBI.
Mohamud was arrested by the FBI and Portland Police Bureau after he attempted to detonate what he believed to be an explosives-laden van that was parked near the tree-lighting ceremony in Portland's Pioneer Courthouse Square, the Justice Department said in a written statement, but the device was actually inert.
"The threat was very real. Our investigation shows that Mohamud was absolutely committed to carrying out an attack on a very grand scale," said Arthur Balizan, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI in Oregon. "At the same time, I want to reassure the people of this community that, at every turn, we denied him the ability to actually carry out the attack."
The arrest was the culmination of a long-term undercover operation during which Mohamud had been monitored closely as his alleged bomb plot developed, the Justice Department said. Officials said the public was never in danger from the device.
According to an arrest warrant affidavit written by an FBI special agent, Mohamud was in e-mail communication in August 2009 with a person believed to be involved in terrorist activities. In December, that person was "located in the northwest frontier province of Pakistan," the affidavit states.
The two communicated regularly, the affidavit states, and "using coded language, they discussed the possibility of Mohamud traveling to Pakistan to prepare for violent jihad."
Mohamud attempted to contact another associate who he thought would help facilitate his travel overseas, the affidavit states, but "because Mohamud used the wrong e-mail address in his efforts to contact [the second associate], he never successfully contacted him to arrange travel."
An undercover FBI employee contacted Mohamud in June under the guise of being affiliated with the associate who was in Pakistan, according to the affidavit. Mohamud met with the undercover operative on July 30 in Portland.
Mohamud allegedly told the undercover operative that he had written articles that were published in Jihad Recollections, an online magazine that advocated violent jihad.
"Mohamud also indicated that he wanted to become 'operational,'" the Justice Department said. "Asked what he meant by 'operational,' Mohamud stated that he wanted to put an 'explosion' together, but needed help."
At a meeting in August, the Justice Department said, Mohamud allegedly told undercover FBI operatives he had been thinking of committing violent jihad since the age of 15. According to the affidavit, Mohamud then told undercover operatives that he had identified a potential target for a bomb: the annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland's Pioneer Courthouse Square.
Authorities said an FBI operative pointed out that lots of children would be at such an event, but Mohamud said he was looking for a "huge mass that will ... be attacked in their own element with their families celebrating the holidays." Officials said Mohamud also stated, "... it's in Oregon; and Oregon like you know, nobody ever thinks about it."
According to the affidavit, Mohamud and the undercover FBI operatives traveled to a remote area in Lincoln County, Oregon, on November 4 and detonated a bomb hidden in a backpack as a test. During the drive back to Corvallis, the agents asked Mohamud about whether he could look at the bodies of those who would be killed in the upcoming attack in Portland, the Justice Department said.
Mohamud replied, "I want whoever is attending that event to leave, to leave either dead or injured," according to the affidavit.
On Friday, Mohamud met one of the FBI operatives at a predetermined location, the affidavit states. Mohamud dialed a number "in an unsuccessful attempt to detonate the device." Mohamud allegedly dialed the number again before he was taken custody.
"This defendant's chilling determination is a stark reminder that there are people -- even here in Oregon -- who are determined to kill Americans," Dwight C. Holton, U.S. Attorney for the District of Oregon, said in a statement . "The good work of law enforcement protected Oregonians in this case -- and we have no reason to believe there is any continuing threat arising from this case."
Mohamud is expected to make his initial appearance in federal court in Portland on Monday, the Justice Department said. If convicted of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction, Mohamud faces a maximum statutory sentence of life in prison and a $250,000 fine

HAWIYE-born teen arrested in car bomb sting

 

HAWIYE teenager 'tried to set off car bomb in US'

Guerilla Mistress to Obama Confidant; The Life and Crimes of Gayle Smith

Ihttp://www.flickr.com/photos/7545702@N07/2692510897

 

Guerilla Mistress to Obama Confidant; The Life and Crimes of Gayle Smith

Once the mistress of a marxist guerilla fighter in the Horn of Africa, today Gayle Smith is a senior advisor to Barack Obama in the White House, USA. Gayle Smith started her career in service to the American Empire as an undercover CIA operative posing as a journalist in the Horn of Africa in the late 1970’s. Taking her duty seriously, she became the mistress of a guerilla fighter known by the nom de guerre of “Jamaica”  in the Marxist-Leninist-Enver Hoxha-ite Tigrayan Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF), then fighting for independence from the Soviet Union supported Mengistu regime in Ethiopia.

As a close confidant to the leadership of the TPLF, Gayle Smith would spend the decade of the 1980’s as the liaison between the CIA and Meles Zenawi, the leader of the TPLF who was to become the Prime Minister of Ethiopia after the defeat and overthrow of the Mengistu regime by the Eritrean independence movement in 1991. Gayle Smith is the person most responsible for the rise to power and elevation to international leadership status of Ethiopia’s Meles Zenawi, one of the most corrupt, bloodthirsty genocidal killers of modern times who would once again stride the world stage at the G-20 meeting held in Korea.

After the overthrow of the Mengistu regime in Ethiopia in 1991, Gayle Smith left her career as a “journalist” in the Horn of Africa and quickly (three years) became the Chief of Staff of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). As the de facto operations chief of this multibillion dollar American government “aid agency” she oversaw, amongst other nefarious activities,  the assignment of CIA operatives using USAID as a cover for their various criminal activities in the rest of the world.

Journalist to chief operating officer at the largest USA aid outfit in a matter of a few years? Apparently Gayle Smith’s time in the trenches of the Horn of Africa had caught the attention of the heavy hitters in the USA intelligence community. Within a few more years Gayle Smith had risen to a prominent place in the Clinton White House as head of African affairs on the National Security Council. As a NSC senior member she rose early every morning to help prepare the National Security Estimate, the report given to the President first thing every morning at the start of the Presidential work day. Every morning, rain or shine, she was in the White House ready to brief President Clinton and answer any questions he may have about the various activities of the CIA et al in Africa.

Before this as USAID operations chief in 1994, Gayle Smith initiated and coordinated the international multibillion dollar aid to arms diversion that allowed the Meles Zenawi regime in Ethiopia to rebuild the Ethiopian army into the largest, best equipped in Africa.

In 1998 Gayle Smith was adamant in demanding, along with her boss and National Security Advisor Anthony “Tony” Lake, that the Meles Zenawi regime launch a war against former comrades in arms in newly independent Eritrea, lead by the Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front in an attempt to destroy and re-colonialize the former Ethiopian “province”.  It seems that Gayle Smith and other such minions of the US Empire have a near pathological hatred for any and all independence movements that come to power via the armed struggle and that do not immediately kneel down and pledge allegiance to Pax Americana. Eritrea’s national motto is “Never Kneel Down” so they were slated to be destroyed and the Meles Zenawi mafia was chosen to do the dirty work as the newly anointed USA gendarme in East Africa.

The carnage that followed has been described as “The Holocaust in the Horn; The War Nobody Remembers”, with over 10,000 Ethiopian troops killed in the first offensive in 1998, 50,000 plus in the second Ethiopian offensive of 1999 and by conservative estimate, 150,000 Ethiopian soldiers killed in combat during the third offensive of May-June 2000.

On top of this the Ethiopian invasion of Eritrea created 1.5 million Eritrean refugees, internally displaced persons.  If Eritrean casualties are added, 19,000 killed in action/martyred, The Holocaust in the Horn resulted in almost a quarter million deaths. 250,000 dead,1.5 million refugees and Gayle Smith’s fingerprints all over the crime scene.

There is much more to this sordid tale with the ongoing genocide in the Ethiopian Ogaden being a strong contender for the worst crime against humanity in the world today. Committed by the Meles Zenawi mafia, funded and overseen by the likes of Obama “Senior Advisor” and Horn of Africa specialist Gayle Smith, 12 or maybe 15 million potential victims of the ongoing genocide in the Ethiopian Ogaden are forgotten by the world.

But not by Gayle Smith, who knows very well just how desperate the situation is and in response has ordered Meles Zenawi to expel all aid agencies and increased the level of support and financial aid to the Meles Zenawi regime from her perch in the Obama White House. She has rewarded these acts of genocide by helping elevate Meles Zenawi to world leader status, a G-20 statesman.

When someday, despite tens of billions of dollars in western “aid”, the Meles Zenawi regime crumbles and falls, maybe, just maybe, Gayle Smith will fall with him. Until then the life and crimes of Gayle Smith continue, blessed by President Barack Obama himself. The guerilla mistress turned presidential confidant still rules her roost, ready to order the dispatch of her goombahs to commit murder and mayhem, genocide even, whatever it takes to try to preserve the crumbling empire she has served so faithfully.

thomascmountain at yahoo dot com
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Somalia: The Ethiopian Factor part # 3

Tigreans could pay the price for Meles crimes – Gregory Stanton: EU report says Ethiopia's elections had many flaws

 Ethiopia’s despot picks a fight with Egypt

U.S.’s Dual-Track Policy: Does it help or hurt the efforts to End Somalia’s Crisis?

Tribal enclave separatist Somaliland leader wears Ethiopian lapel pin :Ethiopian Military Frees Somali Elders After Days In Custody

Isaqia: Is It SSC Or PSS-Demystifying Common Deceptions

An Open Letter to Johnnie Carson

Saudi Arabia arrests 149 suspected of having Al Qaeda links

 


RIYADH—Saudi Arabia has arrested 149 people from 19 cells linked to Al Qaeda over the past eight months and foiled attacks against government and security officials, the Interior Ministry said on Friday.
The announcement comes as elderly Saudi King Abdullah is in the United States recovering from surgery to treat a blood clot complication from a slipped disc.
“In the past eight months 149 people linked to Al Qaeda were arrested, among them were 124 Saudis and 25 were from other nationalities,” Interior Ministry spokesman Mansour Turki told a news conference.
The non-Saudi suspects were of Arab, African and South Asian descent, he said, adding that the thwarted cells had links to Al Qaeda in Yemen, Somalia and Afghanistan.
“These cells have links with Al Qaeda who are disturbing the security in Yemen, with Somalia and organizations in Afghanistan,” Turki said.
The ministry confiscated $597,000 from Al Qaeda suspects, he said, and militants had tried to collect money and spread their ideology during the Muslim pilgrimages of Hajj and Umra in Saudi Arabia.
Turki also said the attackers were also planning to target government facilities but did not say whether they included oil installations.
The television channel al Arabiya reported on Friday that the kingdom had also foiled plans to attack Saudi oil installations.
A Saudi Arabian counterterrorism drive halted a violent Al Qaeda campaign in the Gulf Arab
ountry from 2003 to 2006. Al Qaeda’s Yemeni and Saudi wings merged in 2009 into a new group, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), based in Yemen.
“The organization is trying to recruit people inside the kingdom. There are cells that facilitate (the recruits) to travel outside (the kingdom) to train and then they return. . . they exploit the Hajj season for this purpose,” Turki told journalists at the news conference.
Those who had donated money were not aware they were giving to militant organizations, he said.
Saudi concerns about Al Qaeda’s presence in Yemen surged after the kingdom’s top anti-terrorism official, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, was slightly hurt in a suicide attack in August last year by a Saudi posing as a repentant militant returning from Yemen.
The arrests announced on Friday follow one of the largest Al Qaeda sweeps in years by Saudi Arabia earlier this year. In March, the kingdom arrested 113 Al Qaeda militants including suicide bombers who had been planning attacks on energy facilities in the world’s top oil exporter.
The March arrests netted 58 suspected Saudi militants and 52 from Yemen. The militants, who also came from Bangladesh, Eritrea and Somalia, were backed by the Yemen-based AQAP.
The arrested suspects will not be sent to a rehabilitation program, Turki said, but will be put on trial. They could be sent to rehabilitation programs after serving their sentences and showing repentance, he said. There were still other suspects at large and the ministry asked that they turn themselves in, Turki said. Toronto Star

The Real Story of Thanksgiving

Somali-Americans join all Americans in celebrating Thanksgiving this week, here is an interesting perspective by radio host Rush Limbaugh on one of America’s biggest holidays: 
 
RUSH: Time now, ladies and gentlemen, for The Real Story of Thanksgiving, as written by I — by me — in my second book, See, I Told You So. It’s page 70 in the hardcover version. “On August 1, 1620, the Mayflower set sail. It carried a total of 102 passengers, including forty Pilgrims led by William Bradford. On the journey, Bradford set up an agreement, a contract, that established just and equal laws for all members of the new community, irrespective of their religious beliefs. Where did the revolutionary ideas expressed in the Mayflower Compact come from? From the Bible. The Pilgrims were a people completely steeped in the lessons of the Old and New Testaments. They looked to the ancient Israelites for their example. And, because of the biblical precedents set forth in Scripture, they never doubted that their experiment would work.”
Now, you know the usual story of Thanksgiving: They landed. They had no clue where they were, no idea how to feed themselves. The Indians came out, showed ‘em how to pop popcorn, fed ‘em turkey, saved ‘em basically — and then white European settlers after that basically wiped out the Indian population. It’s a horrible example. Not only is that not true, here is the part that’s been omitted from what is still today taught as the traditional Thanksgiving story in many schools. “The original contract the Pilgrims had entered into with their merchant-sponsors in London called for everything they produced to go into a common store,’ when they got here, ‘and each member of the community was entitled to one common share. All of the land they cleared and the houses they built belong to the community as well.
“They were going to distribute it equally. All of the land they cleared and the houses they built belonged to the community as well. … [William] Bradford, who had become the new governor of the colony, recognized that this form of collectivism was as costly and destructive to the Pilgrims as that first harsh winter, which had taken so many lives. He decided to take bold action. Bradford assigned a plot of land to each family to work and manage, thus turning loose the power of the marketplace. … Long before Karl Marx was even born, the Pilgrims had discovered and experimented with what could only be described as socialism,’ and it had failed” miserably because when every one put things in the common store, some people didn’t have to put things in for there to be, people that didn’t produce anything were taking things out, and it caused resentment just as it does today. So Bradford had to change it.
“What Bradford and his community found was that the most creative and industrious people had no incentive to work any harder than anyone else, unless they could utilize the power of personal motivation! But while most of the rest of the world has been experimenting with socialism for well over a hundred years – trying to refine it, perfect it, and re-invent it – the Pilgrims decided early on to scrap it permanently. What Bradford wrote about this social experiment should be in every schoolchild’s history lesson. If it were, we might prevent much needless suffering,” that happens today and will happen “in the future. ‘The experience that we had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years…that by taking away property, and bringing community into a common wealth, would make them happy and flourishing – as if they were wiser than God,’ Bradford wrote.
“‘For this community (so far as it was) was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For young men that were most able and fit for labor and service did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children without [being paid] that was thought injustice.’ … The Pilgrims found that people could not be expected to do their best work without incentive. So what did Bradford’s community try next? They unharnessed the power of good old free enterprise by invoking the undergirding capitalistic principle of private property. Every family was assigned its own plot of land to work and permitted to market its own crops and products. And what was the result?”
Here’s what Bradford wrote, the governor of the Massachusetts colony. “‘This had very good success,’ wrote Bradford, ‘for it made all hands industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been.’ Bradford doesn’t sound like much of a Clintonite, does he?” or an Obamaite, if I can update it. “Is it possible that supply-side economics could have existed before the 1980s? … Anyway, the pilgrims found “In no time, the Pilgrims found they had more food than they could eat themselves. … So they set up trading posts and exchanged goods with the Indians. The profits allowed them to pay off their debts to the merchants in London. And the success and prosperity of the Plymouth settlement attracted more Europeans and began what came to be known as the ‘Great Puritan Migration.’”
Very few people have heard this story or have had it taught to them — and the “thanks” was to God for showing them the way. In later parts of the chapter, I quote John Adams and George Washington on their reminisces and their thoughts on the first Thanksgiving and the notion it was thanks to God. It was an entirely different story than is being taught in the schools. It’s been muddied down, watered down all these years — and now it’s been hijacked by the multicultural community — to the point that the story of Thanksgiving is the Pilgrims were a bunch of incompetents and were saved only by the goodness of the Indians, who then were wiped out. And that’s what kids are being taught today — ’cause, of course, you can’t mention the Bible in school, and that’s fundamental to the real story of Thanksgiving.

update: Somali pirates boast of having families in Britain :Somali pirate gang who held Chandlers 'have families in Britain.... and one kidnapper's wife is an asylum seeker'

 update on no wonder that NPR sucks ..Polishing fictionalised story like this... Burnsville man pivotal in freeing British couple from pirates?? This is bollshit . Mohamed Aden is the real mastermind behind..Habar-Gidir Hawiye Pirate Kingpin Acting like a Hero
update

Two of the Somali pirates who kidnapped yacht couple Paul and Rachel Chandler have boasted of having families in Britain.
The gang members, who held the British couple for 13 months, claimed they were set to join their relatives in the UK during tense negotiations to release the pair.
One of the pirate leaders said he now plans to travel to Britain to join his wife and two children, who he says have lived in London for three years after claiming political asylum.

The other is also believed to have family in London. The revelation comes as police probe links with Somalia after the Chandlers were freed for an unspecified ransom.
In a phone call a 32-yearold named Hassan talks about rejoining his wife and children in London, but says: "I'm not looking forward to the cold weather."
He adds: "I am also worried that women are more powerful in the UK."

Somali pirates boast of having families in Britain



Go Camping for 95p! Vouchers collectable in the Daily and Sunday Mirror until 11th August . Click here for more information

Two members of the Somali pirate gang that held Britons Paul and Rachel Chandler hostage for 388 days are believed to have family in the UK.

One of the pirate leaders says he plans to travel to the UK to join his wife and two children, who have claimed political asylum and live in London.
The extraordinary revelations come as intelligence and security officials in the UK and Kenya investigate links between Britain and Somali pirates after the couple were freed from the 13-month ordeal in return for a ransom.

Link to London: Officials are investigating if the pirates that kept the Chandlers hostage could have family in the UK

A second pirate involved in the seizing of the Chandlers is suspected to have lived in Britain and to have family living in London. It is unclear whether his family has also claimed asylum and whether either family receives benefits.
Both men are said to have received a ‘cut’ of the estimated £625,000 ransom paid for the release of Mr Chandler, 60, and his 57-year-old wife.
Investigators say the revelations raise the possibility of pirates travelling to Britain and of part of the ransom money being transferred to family members in the UK.
Their warnings come just weeks after Home Secretary Theresa May highlighted the links between British extremists and Somalia, with some UK citizens travelling there to train alongside Al Qaeda-linked groups. Anti-terrorist investigators believe some have returned to Britain and they have been looking at associations between the UK and pirate gangs, who currently hold some 40 ships and 500 crew hostage.

Frightening possibility: The kidnappers who held the Chandlers, seen here with Somali Prime Minister Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, could travel back to see their families who have claimed asylum in the UK

The Chandlers, from Tunbridge Wells, Kent, were seized as they sailed their yacht in the Indian Ocean, near the Seychelles, on October 23, 2009, and held in the harsh Somali bushland by heavily armed pirates.
They are recovering with their family, who paid part of the ransom, and will be questioned about their time in captivity and specifically the role and identities of individual pirates.
The couple will be shown intelligence photographs – and those from videos taken during their time in the hands of the pirates – to see if any can be identified by name and the roles they played.
Satellite and other telephone calls, together with emails sent from Somalia by suspects to the UK are also being examined and it is understood the identities of several of the gang are known.
Immigration investigators are now involved in the inquiry into their British links and seeking to discover whether individuals have visited the UK or have families here. ‘It is possible that some of those involved in piracy have British or other European citizenship and that is a worrying area which we are exploring,’ one investigator said.

Boast: The Somali pirates, who held the Chandlers for 13 months, alluded in satellite calls that the planned to return to the UK and join their families

Warning: Home Secretary Theresa May highlighted the links between British extremists and Somalia

In satellite calls, the pirates have alluded to links with Britain and a man named as Hassan, 32 – said to be one of the ringleaders of the Chandler abduction – was quoted as saying he had a wife and family in the UK and was planning to join them.
He claimed his family had moved to London three years ago, applying for political asylum.
‘She is putting me under pressure to join her and the children, so I will come to the UK soon,’ he said in one telephone call.
‘I am not looking forward to the cold weather, though, and I am worried that women are more powerful in the UK – I don’t know how long I will stay.’
Hassan has also admitted to being involved in the hijacking of tankers and commercial ships which were boarded at gunpoint and released only after multi-million pound ransoms were paid.
A key figure in assisting the investigation is likely to be Dahir Abdullahi Kadiye, a 56-year-old former minicab driver from East London, who played a significant role in securing the couple’s release.
Mr Kadiye, a father of two, who came to Britain from Somalia in 1997 as a refugee and has UK citizenship, met with the pirates and their representatives for six months trying to broker a deal to free the Chandlers.
Mr Kadiye, who is beginning a security company and travels regularly between the UK and Somalia, said he became involved for ‘humanitarian reasons’ and was hailed as a hero on his return to Britain.

  Daily Mail