2 indicted in Minnesota on Somali terror charges

Reuters:

A federal grand jury in Minneapolis indicted two men on Monday on charges of conspiracy and aiding terrorism overseas, according to court papers.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune said on Monday that one of the men, Salah Osman Ahmed, 26, is of Somali descent and lived in a Minneapolis suburb.

According to the indictment, Ahmed and Abdifatah Yusuf Isse were charged with two counts of providing material support to terrorists "and resources, namely personnel including themselves," and conspiring "to kill, kidnap, and maim and injure persons outside of the United States" between September 2007 and December 2008.

Ahmed was also charged with two counts of making false statements about a flight he took from Minneapolis to Amsterdam on December 6, 2007, and bound for Somalia.

Ahmed "stated that he did not know anyone on his flight to Somalia in December 2007 when, in fact, he traveled to Somalia together with an individual he knew so that they could fight jihad in Somalia," the indictment said.

...

Omar Jamal, executive director of a local group, the Somali Justice Advocacy Center, told reporters outside the court that he thought the two men indicted were "foot soldiers."

Jamal has said U.S. probes into Somali immigrants in the U.S. aiding the conflict in Somalia has hurt U.S. disaster relief to the African nation.

...

There is little effective disaster relief because teh terrorist in Somalia do not want the relief agencies to interfere with their famine strategy. They intend to starve their opponents and attack relief supplies to prevent their distribution. That was really what the Blackhawk down event was all about.

Stopping the return of these guys to Somalia is for their own good anyway. It is pretty passing strange that they would want to go back there anyway. I suspect that 95 percent of the non combatants in Somalia would give anything to be in the US.