PJM:

BREAKING: Somali suicide bomber was from Minneapolis

Abdirahman Warsame at Terror Free Somalia informed us late last night that messages appearing on known al-Shabaab websites indicate that a suicide bomber who carried out on attack on AMISOM forces in Mogadishu on Monday was a Somali-American from the Minneapolis area. A twenty-two minute audio was posted on the Somali Memo website (article and audio have since disappeared) that included a segment of an English-speaking Somali speaker — apparently the suicide bomber — who encourages Muslims in the West to “die for their religion.”

Another article on Somali Memo identifies the speaker as Asadullahi Axmed “al-Imriiki” (“the American”), a 25-year old-from Minneapolis. The news is quickly being picked up by other Somali online forums.

The issue of radicalization and terror recruitment among Somali-American youths is an issue I’ve covered here at Pajamas Media since 2007 (long before it became fashionable for the establishment media). In November 2007, I wrote about a terror fundraiser and deputy of designated terrorist Sheikh Aweys, Zakaria Haji Abdi (who is now part of the Somali TFG government), who was scheduled to speak at several events in Minnesota and Virginia. Our pleas to Homeland Security officials to deny entry to the fundraiser fell on deaf ears and the event took place as planned.

At the time I noted that during the Minneapolis event Abdi instructed the attendees how to send money through hawala networks without raising suspicions of authorities. Law enforcement authorities now concede that the November 2007 meeting I reported on was the tipping point for radicalization in the Minneapolis Somali community.

The first group of Somali Americans to leave for jihad back in Somalia left shortly after the Minneapolis event. They were followed by a larger group of nearly two dozen young Somali men in November 2008. But in October 2008, just prior to the departure of the larger group, one Minneapolis man, Shirwa Ahmed, conducted a suicide bombing attack in northern Somalia — the first known case of an American suicide bomber. Several members of the November 2008 group have been confirmed killed fighting with al-Shabaab.

Then in September 2009, Seattle resident Omar Mohamud carried out another suicide attack targeting African Union troops. Two stolen UN vehicles were used in that attack, which killed twenty-one people. As the Associated Press noted, Abdirahman Warsame was the first to note Mohamud’s identity.

And just last September, I reported here at Pajamas Media that a top al-Shabaab commander killed in fighting Somali TFG troops in Mogadishu was Columbus, Ohio resident Dahir Gurey. Again, it was Abdirahman Warsame who first reported Gurey’s U.S. origins. Now we have reliable, but so far unconfirmed, reports of another Somali-American suicide bomber from Minneapolis.

The problem of radicalization and jihadization of young American Muslim men, particularly in the Somali community, is now evident to everybody. The much-maligned radicalization hearings held by the House Homeland Security Committee in March included the uncle of one of the young men from Minneapolis who had been killed in Somalia. Let’s also not forget that last November, Portland college student Mohamed Osman Mohamud was caught in a FBI sting attempting to blow up a VBIED at the Portland Christmas Tree lighting ceremony. The problem is clearly not diminishing but increasing. Yet as I recently reported here, the U.S. government continues to conduct “outreach” to the very individuals responsible for radicalizing these youths and recruiting them for jihad. How long before one of these American suicide bombers will return home and kill Americans?