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14 indicted in connection with Somalia conflict

06 August 2010 04:21 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. The U.S. Justice Department has unsealed four indictments charging 14 people "with terrorism violations for providing money, personnel, and services to Al-Shabaab" -- the Islamist militant group in Somalia with links to al Qaeda, APA reports quoting CNN.
Indictments and arrests took place in Minnesota, Alabama, and California, said Attorney General Eric Holder, speaking to reporters at a news conference Thursday.
"While our investigations are ongoing around the country, these arrests and charges should serve as an unmistakable warning to others considering joining or supporting terrorist groups like Al-Shabaab: If you choose this route you can expect to find yourself in a U.S. jail cell or a casualty on the battlefield in Somalia," Holder said.
"As demonstrated by the charges unsealed today, we are seeing an increasing number of individuals -- including U.S. citizens -- who have become captivated by extremist ideology and have taken steps to carry out terrorist objectives, either at home or abroad."
One indictment unsealed in Minnesota charged 10 men "with terrorism offenses for leaving the United States to join Al-Shabaab as foreign fighters."
Holder said seven of them had been previously charged by either indictment or criminal complaint, and the other three defendants had not been charged before.
Abdikadir Ali Abdi, 19; Abdisalan Hussein Ali, 21; Cabdulaahi Ahmed Faarax, 33; Farah Mohamed Beledi, 26; and Abdiweli Yassin Isse, 26. are charged with conspiring to provide and providing material support to Al-Shabaab and conspiring to kill, maim and injure people abroad.
Faarax and Isse had been charged previously in a criminal complaint, and Abdi, Ali and Faarax are U.S. citizens, the Justice Department said.
Ahmed Ali Omar, 27; Khalid Mohamud Abshir, 27; Zakaria Maruf, 31; Mohamed Abdullahi Hassan, 22; and Mustafa Ali Salat, 20, are charged with conspiracies to provide material support to terrorists and foreign terrorist organizations; conspiracy to kill, kidnap, maim and injure persons abroad; possessing and discharging a firearm during a crime of violence; and solicitation to commit a crime of violence. The five have been previously charged by indictment.
Acting on a separate indictment, FBI agents also arrested Amina Farah Ali, 33, and Hawo Mohamed Hassan, 63, on Thursday. The women -- who are Rochester, Minnesota, residents and naturalized U.S. citizens -- were charged with "providing material support to terrorists, among other offenses."
"The indictment alleges that these two women raised money to support Al-Shabaab through door-to-door solicitations and teleconferences in Somali communities in Minneapolis, Rochester, and other locations in the United States and Canada. In some cases, these funds were raised under the false pretense that they would be used to aid the poor and the needy," Holder said.
Holder said that in Minnesota alone, 19 defendants now have been charged in connection with the ongoing probe. He said nine of them have been arrested in the United States or overseas, with five pleading guilty. He said 10 are thought to be overseas and aren’t in custody.
Two American citizens -- Omar Shafik Hammami, 26, a former resident of Daphne, Alabama, and Jehad Serwan Mostafa, 28, a former resident of San Diego, California -- have been charged in separate cases "with providing material support to Al-Shabaab." They are thought to be fighting for Al-Shabaab in Somalia.
Holder said Hammami has been in "several propaganda videos on behalf of Al-Shabaab that have been distributed worldwide," and that the man is believed to be a ranking Al-Shabaab member who has "operational responsibilities."
The attorney general emphasized that innocent Muslims have been the victims of attacks by Al-Shabaab, al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other terror groups and pointed out that American Muslims have been vital in helping battle "this emerging threat" in the United States.
"They have regularly denounced terrorist acts and those who carry them out. And they have provided critical assistance to law enforcement in helping to disrupt terrorist plots and combat radicalization," he said.
"These individuals have consistently -- and correctly -- expressed deep concern about the recruitment of their youth by terrorist groups. Many members of the community have taken proactive steps to stop the recruitment of their youth by terrorist groups. Just recently, a group of prominent American Muslims joined together in a video to repudiate the tactics employed by radicalized militants to recruit young Muslims via the internet."
Holder thanked agencies in the United States and abroad for their work on the case -- the FBI; the State and Defense departments; the U.S. attorney offices in Minnesota, southern Alabama and southern California; the U.S. embassies in the United Arab Emirates and Yemen; and authorities in the Netherlands.
Holder said the charges "shed further light on a deadly pipeline that has routed funding and fighters to Al-Shabaab from cities across the United States."
"It’s a disturbing trend that we have been intensely investigating in recent years and will continue to investigate and root out. But we must also work to prevent this type of radicalization from ever taking hold," Holder said.
This comes a day after federal prosecutors in Chicago, Illinois, charged a U.S. citizen with trying to provide material support to two terrorist organizations -- al Qaeda and al-Shabaab -- and with another charge related to weapons of mass destruction, according to a criminal complaint.
Shaker Masri, 26, a U.S. citizen who lives in Chicago, was arrested Tuesday after he allegedly tried to violate a law that prohibits U.S. nationals "from using, threatening, attempting or conspiring to use a weapon of mass
destruction outside the United States," the complaint said.
He had "advocated an extremist and violent interpretation of Islam" in conversations with a confidential source for federal investigators, according to the complaint. He told the source "that he wanted to participate in jihad" in Somalia or Afghanistan, it said.
The Minneapolis office of the FBI has been investigating about 20 men who have gone to Somalia in the past three years to fight with the Islamist extremist al-Shabaab organization in their East African homeland.
Federal officials previously indicted 15 Somali men from Minnesota on terrorism-related charges. Eight were indicted in November, joining seven who had previously been charged.
In addition to the Minnesota cell, the FBI says al-Shabaab has established operations in California, Ohio and Massachusetts. But Minnesota is home to the country’s largest population of Somali residents, according to the
Minneapolis Foundation, a philanthropic community organization.
Most of those Somalis came to the United States as refugees, the foundation says.
About one-third of Minnesota’s Somali residents came directly from refugee camps. Others settled first in another state and then relocated to Minnesota.
Most go to Minnesota because an established Somali community already exists there, which means health care, education and other services are already in place to address the particular needs of Somalis. The availability of unskilled jobs that don’t require English fluency or literacy also is a major draw.
Somalis in Minnesota primarily live in the Minneapolis metro area. Nearly one-third of Minnesota public school students who speak Somali at home attend Minneapolis schools.
Minnesota has seen an exponential growth of refugees fleeing war-torn parts of Africa, particularly Somalia, Liberia and the Sudan.
According to the Minneapolis Foundation, there were 5,000 Minnesota residents in 1990 who had been born in Africa. Ten years later, that number had grown to more than 34,000.
By 2002, nearly 9,000 more immigrants had arrived in Minnesota directly from various African nations.
The 2000 Census showed that 13 percent of Minnesota’s foreign-born residents were from Africa -- a higher percentage than any other state in the country.