Indicted Al-Shabaab Recruiter Continues Jihad on Facebook
As the House Homeland Security Committee prepares to hold hearings this week on the issue of radicalization in the Somali community, it is important to note the reach that the al-Shabaab terrorist group has into the United States. Earlier this month I reported exclusively here at PJM on a fresh set of al-Shabaab recruits from Minneapolis and Columbus, Ohio that were interviewed on their way to Somalia by award-winning Kenyan journalist Fatuma Noor. And in June, I broke the story about an al-Shabaab suicide bomber from Minneapolis — the second Somali suicide bomber from Minneapolis, and only the third recorded case of an American successfully carrying out a suicide bombing (all three were Somali-Americans).
Undoubtedly one of the issues that the Homeland Security Committee will be looking at is how more than two dozen young Somali-Americans, many of whom were good students coming from middle-class families, were recruited to travel overseas to join the global jihad. What will likely never be mentioned: how that recruitment continues unimpeded today.
Not only is the Minnesota mosque that has served as the “radicalization incubator” for many of these youths still churning out jihadist recruits, but one of al-Shabaab’s top recruiters continues his recruiting efforts openly on Facebook and has targeted hundreds of Somali high school and college students.
Cabdulaahi Faarah (Faarax), a naturalized U.S. citizen, has proven to be one of al-Shabaab’s most effective Western recruiters. Now residing in Mogadishu, he uses his Facebook page to continue his recruiting efforts. In just the past week he has added more than 50 new friends — most of them in the U.S. — bringing the total number of his friends on Facebook to more than 500. His Facebook page was linked in a story by the Minneapolis Mirror following the June suicide bombing.
In 2009, Faarah was indicted along with several others for conspiring to kill or injure others outside the United States, in addition to lying to law enforcement investigating the disappearance of more than 20 Somali-Americans who had left to fight with al-Shabaab. According to affidavits submitted to the court at the time of his indictment, Faarah had previously fought in Somalia where he was wounded in the leg, prompting his return to the U.S. But the one-time cab driver continued his support efforts, openly recruiting for al-Shabaab at an unnamed Minneapolis mosque in the fall of 2007, where al-Shabaab officials in Somalia joined in over a telephone loudspeaker. He later led recruiting sessions at a Minneapolis residence. An FBI press release issued upon his indictment said that Faraah was repeatedly interviewed by law enforcement authorities, but each time he denied fighting with al-Shabaab or even knowing anyone who had.
In October 2009, Faarah was part of a group that drove to the Mexican border to travel to Somalia. During their trip they were stopped in Las Vegas by police, and were let go despite the fact that Faarah was on the terror watch list. His picture is even kept on the FBI website.
Also traveling with Faarah on that trip was Farah Mohamed Beledi, who was the recruit who carried out the suicide bombing in June. In fact, reports initially indicated that the suspect in that blast was Faarah himself.
He uses his Facebook page for more than just recruitment. In a recent Washington Post profile of anti-terror activist Abdirazik Bihi, whose nephew Burhan Hassan was recruited and eventually killed fighting with al-Shabaab, Bihi said that the day he testified before the House Homeland Security Committee’s much-maligned radicalization hearing in March he received a friend request on Facebook from Faarah. Bihi perceived this as a taunt from the terror recruiter.
If the past two House Homeland Security Committee hearings on Islamic radicalization already this year are any indicator, the upcoming hearing will generate more heat than light. And yet the issues they have raised and the attention they have brought to the issue, despite all the faux cries of neo-McCarthyism by Islamic groups and their establishment media allies, are long overdue.
As we approach the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, terrorist recruiters are operating openly and without impediment in American mosques and online. Terrorist groups still rely heavily on fundraising in the U.S. and the West. And Islamic groups that promised to tone down their rhetoric after being called out after 9/11 are not only back to pushing their hateful and violent ideology, they are even hosting major conferences at premiere hotels in America’s largest cities. Witness the one held by extremist Hizb ut-Tahrir in a DoubleTree hotel ballroom in Chicago on June 26.
If Congress really wants to investigate the problem of Islamic radicalization, they can start right there.
There is an upside to this. All of his “friends” should immediately be listed under a security threat to deny them and their families permanent residency and if already granted, a security review. Citizenship needs to be denied or revoked if obtained fraudulently.
Unless a message is sent to this community it will continue to foster this type of trash. Of course there will be charges of racial profiling, but we are not about to look in nursing homes of elderly MN Swedes for potential threats.
Sign up to FB here Somali to obtain a shortcut home for you and your family.
Perhaps the availability of items used in the Denmark events and growing numbers of internet informed counter terrorists is an undeniable and lasting message already sent. More refuted attempts through the gun walker white house and international agencies should announce their legitimate concern. Their inflated hopes seem to be losing popularity even in Africa.
“Undoubtedly one of the issues that the Homeland Security Committee will be looking at is how more than two dozen young Somali-Americans, many of whom were good students coming from middle-class families, were recruited to travel overseas to join the global jihad.”
Ya think? Perhaps Janet Napolitano and Eric Holder can take time out from their busy days of smuggling American automatic rifles into Mexico and actually examine how bad this problem is in the Somali-American community? And maybe, just maybe, we should be on the lookout for any of these Somali-Americans who are trying to get back into this country after they’ve been trained in terrorist tactics in Somalia? And isn’t it just a little illegal for an American citizen, even a Somali-American citizen, to fight in a foreign war (let alone a terrorist organization)? Don’t they give up their citizenship when they do something like that? If these Somalis leave this country and decide to blow themselves up in some other, African, country, that may not affect America. But if any of these killers want to return to the United States and kill Americans, then we have a real problem. Why is it up to Peter King in Congress to raise this red flag and NOT Janet Napolitano or Eric Holder?
The rule of law has left the building.
It only applies to you and I.
This fellow will be offered a job with the Obama Administration soon,( if he
already hasn’t been..)He’s got qualifications they are looking for..
He can head NASA.
“Indicted Al-Shabaab Recruiter Continues Jihad on Facebook”
Ok, I don’t like the social media either, but declaring jihad on it is a bit extreme.
You don’t have to worry about being over zealous when an enemy is overtly advised by its leaders reinforced by their unquestionable holy book for 1361 years of successful violent practice. Just look for the part that applies to you and ignore the TV media whitewash. But remember the ads spaced amid the lies for boycotting all products and services supporting both the message and the messenger.
Looking at that picture, somehow I can only think of “Cola Nut or Un-Cola Nut? Aaaaahahaha!” But I’ll give Geoffrey Holder a break…
I have reported him to Facebook I have provided all available information on him let us see if Facebook pulls his profile.
Facebook = Flypaper
Go Petraeus!
“all three were Somali-Americans”
I vigorously resent this label. They are NOT, will never be and CANNOT be, Americans. Just one more hyphenated bunch of useless garbage.
And It’s time we close down their political recruiting centers…..Yea…mosques.
Then bring home the troops from Iraq and Afghanistan and surround Dearborn and Minneapolis like we did Mogadishu.
There are a few key map-words we Americans should always keep in mind:
Cordoba
Vienna
Tours
Londonistan
Amsterdamistan
Paristan
Additionally, here’s some key mind-set processes to ponder:
subversion
propaganda
patience
…and the all important key biological process:
copulation-fertilization-childbirth.
Then….when all of the chemistry is just right:
Islamist martyrdom.
Brushing these intimately connected concepts aside, disdainfully thinking they don’t apply to you as individuals….is dangerous to your heath.