HOW AL SHABAB RECRUITS JIHADI'S IN THE WEST

*** Once again, kudos to Stewart Bell for an eye-opening article. I just hope we have a plan in place to deal with this but I see little interest in developing a counter narrative. The Canadian public is being put at risk because of this foot-dragging.

Too bad for the racist, hateful language by those posting after the story - but its open season on Islam these days so its to be expected.

MS ***


FROM: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/From+teens+terrorists+Shabab+recruits+Western+martyrs/3224716/story.html


Stewart Bell, National Post · Thursday, Jul. 1, 2010

In a video posted on the Internet, 10 militants-in-training jog on a sandy trail on the Somali plains. Their faces are masked but the one in the red-checkered scarf and white runners is alleged to be a young Canadian.

His name is Abdul Karim.

“We have a global mission,” one of the Al-Shabab trainees says into the camera, speaking in English and holding a worn assault rifle. “Come join us and defend the religion of Allah.”

A police investigation now underway in Ontario by the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET) is trying to trace how Canadian youths are ending up in Somalia at the paramilitary training camps of Al-Shabab, the al-Qaeda-linked militant group.

A top-secret government report obtained by the National Post says Al-Shabab, which emerged from the heavily armed chaos of Somalia in 2006, is using a variety of methods to entice Canadian youths to its camps. “Islamist extremists are radicalizing and recruiting Somali-Canadian youths within Canada to travel to Somalia for jihad training,” says the Integrated Threat Assessment Centre report, titled “Al-Shabab’s Recruitment of Youths from Canada.”

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service said five Somali-Canadians who left Toronto between September and November 2009 “could receive weapons and related training” in Somalia and “potentially engage in Al-Shabab-related violent activities,” spokeswoman Isabelle Scott said.

A sixth such Somali-Canadian is presumed dead.

Police in the United States and Europe are conducting similar investigations. A Danish-Somali killed 24 people in a suicide bombing in Mogadishu last December. On June 5, two New Jersey men were arrested at JFK airport as they were allegedly on their way to Africa to join Al-Shabab.

“The situation remains chaotic and continues to provide and facilitate [recruiting] pipelines, training and attack planning by extremist groups targeting Western interests in Somalia and the region,” Ms. Scott said.

Videos like the one in which Abdul Karim, an 18-year-old Somali-Canadian from Toronto, allegedly makes a one-minute cameo are central to Al-Shabab’s recruiting campaign. (The videos cited here were obtained from the SITE Intelligence Group, which found them on extremist websites and produced transcripts.)

“To all you youth out in the States, out in the U.K., Sweden, France, and so on,” a singer raps in one of them.

“You are now at the biggest crossroads of your life.

“You must make a choice: Are you going to live like an honourable man and die like an honourable man?

“Or are you going to live like a humiliated coward and die like one?”

In Toronto, young Somalis watch Al-Shabab videos “all the time,” said Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, a Somali-Canadian who is trying to start a group called Generation Islam to combat radicalization in his community.

“Watching these Shabab propaganda videos is very widespread among our youth,” he said, adding he was disappointed by the government response to what he described as “young boys being brainwashed and sent into a path of destruction.”

The de-classified government report, circulated internally on March 29 and released under the Access to Information Act, says Al-Shabab recruiting efforts are targeting idealistic Western youths.

“Whereas Somali parents retreat into their own culture in the face of Western values, Somali teenagers struggling to assimilate often reject adult tradition and authority in the home,” reads the Intelligence Assessment.

“Such cultural dissonance, according to another study, is rampant in diaspora Somali communities in Toronto and elsewhere, and opens the door to dangerously powerful influence from peers.”

The Internet propaganda of Al-Shabab mixes militant Islamist ideology with Somali nationalism to appeal to a young on-line audience. “And that’s a very powerful cocktail,” said Ahmed Hussen, president of the Canadian Somali Congress.

One recent video shows footage of Mohamed Elmi Ibrahim, a 22-year-old University of Toronto student who, according to a pro-Al-Shabab website, was killed in combat in Somalia. It portrays him as a martyr.

“Jihad against the armies,” goes the slow dirge.

“No rest for the oppressors, a life of fear.

“Establishing Allah’s law on land and sea.

“My number one goal die a shahid [martyr].”

The singer is Omar Hammami, a U.S. citizen who moved to Toronto, married a Somali-Canadian and is now a top Al-Shabab commander. He appears frequently in recruiting videos, rapping lyrics about jihad.

“Gonna knock America down to her knees,” he sings.

“You want to promote your religion: democracy.

“Along with your cross, temples and your priests.

“Our response is martyrdom or victory.”

It may be too late for those who have already left Canada. Few foreign recruits have returned alive. Before Mr. Ibrahim’s death, another Canadian extremist and former Toronto resident known as Asparo was killed in a gunfight with Ethiopian troops in July 2008. Somali and Ethiopian officials report finding Canadian identity documents on the bodies of Islamist fighters killed in battle.

“We’re aware of several individuals that have gone abroad for training,” said RCMP Assistant Commissioner Gilles Michaud, head of National Security Criminal Investigations for the Mounties, “but there’s not a lot of them that we’re aware of that are back.”

But even when they do come back, police can’t always do anything about it. Witnesses and reliable evidence are hard to come by, since the camps are based in countries like Somalia that are largely un-policed.

“If they only go for training and they don’t use it, or we can’t demonstrate that they have an intent of using it, there’s no charge for that,” Asst. Comm. Michaud said. “The other thing that is of concern is the fact that they get this training, then they come back to Canada. And so you now have individuals that have gone to the point of getting training and, not knowing what the intent is at the end of the day, and they’re roaming our streets.”

Abdul Karim is back in Toronto now.

He lives with his father, Ahmed, on the fourth floor of an apartment tower near Pearson airport. (The National Post is not publishing his surname because he has not been charged and would have been a minor when the alleged training took place.)

His father said the events in question took place long ago and lasted only a few days but he declined to answer whether he disputed that his son was at the camp. He refused interview requests, claiming he was being harassed.

Neither the RCMP nor CSIS would comment on whether they were investigating Abdul Karim. “I can’t talk about specifics of the case, who we are interviewing or planning to interview. This is an ongoing matter,” RCMP spokesman Sergeant Marc LaPorte said.

“Any radicalization or recruitment by any terrorist group like Al-Shabab would be of interest to INSET. Although I can’t comment on the number of missing Somali-Canadians, the RCMP monitor the issue of Canadians going abroad to participate in terrorism-related activities, and when warranted, we commence the appropriate criminal investigations.”

The Al-Shabab video allegedly featuring Abdul Karim was released in 2008. At that time, some Somalis had taken up arms to fight troops from neighbouring Ethiopia who had invaded the country to support the fragile Somali government.

Mr. Mohamed, who was among those who fought the Ethiopians and has since returned to Toronto, said recruits who trained then should not be considered terrorists. But he said those who joined Al-Shabab after Ethiopia withdrew its forces early in 2009 were driven by ideology rather than patriotism.

The 40-minute Al-Shabab video mentions Ethiopia, but only once. It does, however, mention fighting the United States, exacting revenge over the Danish cartoons and speaks repeatedly of a global fight against non-Muslims. “We are coming you Christians, we are coming you Jews,” it says.

The recruits are shown running an obstacle course, shooting at a photo of the Somali president at that time, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, firing rocket launchers and practising hand-to-hand combat.

The one believed to be Abdul Karim is dressed in camouflage clothing. The lanky teen marches, jogs on the spot and bunny hops with his hands behind his head.

At least two others have light skin, which is visible below their rolled up sleeves, indicating they are not Somalis.

Two can be heard speaking in English.

“Oh Muslim brothers,” one of them says, standing behind what looks like a rocket launcher, “migrate to the land of jihad to fight alongside your brothers.”

National Post

sbell@nationalpost.com

SOMALI REFUGEES TO YEMEN & TERRORISM

*** When people are made to feel they are not welcome in society, they become marginalized and are easy pickings for those who peddle in anger, desperation and rage. We are dismantling human society through our negligence. MS ***


FROM: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/world/Al-Qaeda-reaps-recruits-from-Somali-refugees-in-Yemen-94782249.html



Al Qaeda reaps recruits from Somali refugees in Yemen
By: Sara A. Carter
National Security Correspondent
May 25, 2010

Al Qaeda's robust terror organization in Yemen is recruiting from a pool of hundreds of thousands of Somali refugees who have fled war in their homeland, according to U.S. and Yemeni intelligence officials.

Approximately 700,000 Somali refugees have made Yemen their home, and that population is expected to continue to grow in the face of the collapse of the East African nation, Yemeni and intelligence officials told The Washington Examiner. A significant number of those Somali refugees are believed to be members of Al-Shabaab Mujahideen, an Islamist insurgency group with strong ties to al Qaeda.

Two American tourists were kidnapped by gunmen in Yemen Monday, and local officials said it was likely the group holding them had ties to al Qaeda. The abduction highlighted the growing danger of Islamic extremists in Yemen, experts said.

Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst who was an adviser to President Obama on Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy, said the Somali refugee crisis poses significant national security concerns for the United States, and a golden opportunity for al Qaeda.

Riedel, who visited the Gulf of Aden last winter, said that although Somali refugees hope that Yemen will be their first stop to a wealthier country, "most never get beyond Yemen. Among them are dozens of young extremists who become recruits for [al Qaeda Arabian Penninsula]."

Al Qaeda in Yemen and Saudi Arabia merged into a single organization in early 2009, intelligence officials said. It calls itself al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and is based in Yemen. A number of Somali militants enter Yemen "to train with AQAP," a U.S. counterterrorism official confirmed.

American born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki has emerged as a key player in al Qaeda's efforts to raise important new infrastructures in countries like Yemen which are outside the reach of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, and where lawlessness and poverty prevail.

Al-Awalki, an American of Yemeni decent, is believed to be hiding in Yemen. U.S. intelligence officials say he is the new face of al Qaeda and recruits from the large number of Somali refugees entering that nation.

Al-Awlaki is the only American on the CIA's list of important targets to apprehend or kill. On Monday, in a video released by al Qaeda, al-Awalki, dressed in Yemeni traditional tribal clothing, called on believers to kill American soldiers and civilians.

Christopher Boucek, a Yemen specialist with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote in a recently published report, "There are increasing indications that al Qaeda is regrouping in Yemen and preparing to strike at Western and other targets."

A retired senior military official with direct knowledge of al Qaeda in Yemen said that as al Qaeda's recruiting pool grows, Western targets will become more vulnerable.

He said Somali refugees are just one group of potential recruits.

"With the Somali crisis in Yemen growing we have to be mindful of how these various groups, like Somalia's Al-Shabaab, are connecting, recruiting and developing ties to one another," the official said.

Another military official warned that the global links between the groups in Yemen pose a "significant danger to our own national security because the next attack in the U.S. may not come from someone we suspect but from a recruit born right here or someone else, like a Somali refugee," he said.

In April, The Examiner reported that 23 Somalis who entered Mexico illegally earlier in the year were believed headed for the U.S. after being released by Mexican authorities. Of the 23 Somalis, several were directly connected to Al-Shabaab, according to the law enforcement documents.

Intelligence suggested some were attempting to cross the southern border into the U.S. Intelligence officials say they have not been located.

Al Qaeda's ties with Somali refugees also have implications for the oil-rich Middle East.

Riedel warned that as al Qaeda solidifies its safe havens in Yemen and Somalia, it will become a growing danger to the shipping lanes in the world's most important waterways.

"Al Qaeda's leadership in Yemen has very ambitious plans to develop cooperation [with] the Shabab in Somalia so that al Qaeda can influence the control of the shipping lanes in the Bab al Mandab strait that separates Asia from Africa and which is the world's energy choke point," he said.

SHABAB COMMANDER RELEASES RECRUITING VIDEO

*** Basically, it goes that your aim is only to blow yourself up, kill other Muslims in doing so (usually women and children) and that makes you a martyr?!?!.

PLEASE make that decision BEFORE you get married and BEFORE you have kids - which you then leave to suffer because of your dead-end action. MS ***




http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2010/05/americanborn_shabaab.php