The Somalia terror connection

Washington Post:

Senior U.S. counterterrorism officials are stepping up warnings that Islamist extremists in Somalia are radicalizing Americans to their cause, citing their recruitment of the first U.S. citizen suicide bomber and their potential role in the disappearance of more than a dozen Somali American youths.

In recent public statements, the director of national intelligence and the leaders of the FBI and CIA have cited the case of Shirwa Ahmed, a 27-year-old college student from Minneapolis who blew himself up in Somalia on Oct. 29 in one of five simultaneous bombings attributed to al-Shabaab, a group with close links to al-Qaeda.

Since November, the FBI has raced to uncover any ties to foreign extremist networks in the unexpected departures of numerous Somali American teenagers and young men, who family members believe are in Somalia. The investigation is active in Boston; San Diego; Seattle; Columbus, Ohio; and Portland, Maine, a U.S. law enforcement official said, and community members say federal grand juries have issued subpoenas in Minneapolis and elsewhere.

Officials are still trying to assess the scope of the problem but say reports so far do not warrant a major concern about a terrorist threat within the United States. But intelligence officials said the recruitment of U.S. citizens by terrorist groups is particularly worrisome because their American passports could make it easier for them to reenter the country.

Al-Shabaab -- meaning "the youth" or "young guys" in Arabic -- "presents U.S. authorities with the most serious evidence to date of a 'homegrown' terrorist recruitment problem right in the American heartland," Georgetown University professor Bruce R. Hoffman says in a forthcoming report by the SITE Intelligence Group, a private firm that monitors Islamist Web sites.

The extent of al-Shabaab's reach into the U.S. Somali community, estimated at up to 200,000 foreign-born residents and their relatives, will be the subject of a hearing today by the Senate homeland security committee, chaired by Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.).

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Somalia is an Islamic hellhole. It has adopted the cruel and unusual punishment of Shari'a Law, and is a sanctuary for al Qaeda operatives in Africa. It is a place where we have tried the tactic some have suggested for Afghanistan of toppling their government when they raise their heads. That has not been a satisfactory solution, but no one wants to do the hard work of counterinsurgency in such a God forsaken place.