U.S. youths recruited for Somali terror group Al-Shabaab, hearing told

By Guy Taylor

alshThe head of the largest Somali-American youth organisation told Congress on Thursday that the United States faces “an uphill battle” in the fight against the Somalia-based Al-Shabaab terrorist network’s active recruiting operations in American cities.

Officials must work with local partners in these cities “to deter youth from becoming radicalized and recruited,” said Mohamed Farah, executive director of Ka Joog, a Minnesota-based, grass-roots group whose name in Somali means “stay away.” Minnesota is home to the nation’s largest Somalian emigre community.

Mr. Farah, told a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing that the al Qaeda-linked group Al-Shabaab preys on “disenfranchised” Somali youth in American cities and that U.S. agencies should be doing more to aid organizations like his own in the fight to “eliminate this cancerous ideology.”

The sobering remarks came amid heightened concern among U.S. law enforcement and intelligence official about the possibility that Al-Shabaab may be plotting attacks on so-called “soft targets” inside the United States — following the group’s horrific attack two weeks ago on a high-end shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya that killed dozens of shoppers.

A team of FBI agents has ramped up investigations into that threat, since Al-Shabaab claimed via the social media website Twitter that three Somali-Americans, recruited from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area as well as Kansas City, were among the gunmen who laid siege to the mall.

“Al-Shabaab has demonstrated a unique ability to recruit young members of the Somali diaspora community in the United States and Europe to travel to Somalia and join their fight,” warned committee Chairman Ed Royce, California Republican.

“We need to be on top of this al Qaeda-aligned group’s reach into the United States,” Mr. Royce said. “Al Qaeda leadership recently encouraged sympathizers in the U.S. to carry out smaller, but still deadly attacks as individuals, or in teams of two or three. Such strikes on U.S. soil could be similar to the one Al-Shabaab launched against the mall in Kenya.”

Terrorism analysts testifying at the hearing played down the specter of an attack on so-called soft targets inside the United States, saying that Al-Shabaab is far more likely — and is as more operationally capable — to stage more attacks in Africa.

“At the moment, Al-Shabaab does not appear to be plotting attacks against the U.S. homeland, but there are several reasons why America should still be concerned about Al-Shabaab,” said Seth Jones, a RAND Corp. security analyst.

Even so, Mr. Jones said, U.S. and Western government officials note that Al-Shabaab and its leader, Ahmed Abdi al-Mohamed, “have expressed an interest in striking U.S. and other foreign targets in East Africa.”

“They have also planned to kidnap Americans and other foreigners in the region, as well as plotted attacks against malls, supermarkets, embassies and other locations frequented by Westerners,” he said. “After all, Al-Shabaab leaders consider the United States an enemy.”

source: The Washington Times

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