 One of the most visible leaders of an Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist militia in Somalia spent a year in Toronto ingratiating himself into the Somali immigrant community as a convert to Islam.
Omar Hammami – known to followers as Abu Mansour "Al-Amriki" (the American) – ate at Somali restaurants and prayed in Somali mosques.
He married a Toronto woman of Somali origin and had a daughter with her.
Then, after learning Somali ways, he left to join the Horn of Africa's top terror group, Al-Shabab, to wage Islamic jihad and recruit other foreign nationals to the cause, say former friends and relatives speaking publicly of the terrorist's Toronto connections for the first time.
"He betrayed us," says a former friend who worked with Hammami at a Weston Rd. pizzeria. "For a man to be saying that, Islamically, it is okay to be killing innocent people – and yesterday you fed him bread and welcomed him into your houses – it kind of shatters you."
Five ethnic Somali men disappeared from Scarborough this fall, all friends believed recruited into Al-Shabab. Three are said by family associates to have since phoned home from Somalia. No direct connection to Hammami is known but in the Somali community his Internet postings are notorious.
On a 2008 recruitment video, referring to one of his dead fighters, Hammami says, "We need more like him.
"So if you can encourage more of your children and more of your neighbours, anyone around, to send people like him to this jihad, it would be a great asset for us."
A least 20 young men have left Minneapolis, Minn., for Al-Shabab in the last 18 months. One of them is confirmed to have blown himself up with a car bomb in the Somali port town of Bosasso. Five others are said by relatives to be dead.
Other young men have left from Boston, Columbus, San Diego and Seattle. Others have joined from Australia and the United Kingdom.
The suicide bomber who killed three government ministers and at least 16 others at a graduating ceremony for doctors and engineers last month in Mogadishu was recruited from Denmark.
Hammami himself is said to have been wounded in fighting late last year.
Al-Shabab's stated goals are to take power from the fragile government backed by African Union troops and turn Somalia into an Islamic state friendly to Al Qaeda. Ultimately, its leaders say, the aim is to establish a global Islamic state.
"We are striving to establish the Islaamic Khilaafah from East to West," Hammami writes in an Internet posting of Jan. 8, 2008, "after removing the occupier and killing the apostates."
For Torontonians, al-Shabab recruitment presents another terrifying possibility: A fanatic returns to explode himself in a crowd.
Or as RCMP Commissioner William Elliott put it in October: "The potential follow-on threat is Somali-Canadians who travel to Somalia to fight and then return, imbued with both extremist ideology and the skills necessary to translate it into direct action."
Omar Hammami is 25 years old. He grew up in Daphne, Ala., just outside Mobile.
His mother is Baptist by religion. His father is Shafik Hammami, a Syrian-born engineer with the Alabama transportation department and president of the Islamic Society of Mobile. Reached by phone last week, he refused comment.
Although Hammami grew up Baptist, he converted to Islam in the late 1990s while attending Daphne High School.
"He had tons of friends," fellow student Shellie Brooks told Fox News four months ago, "and of course things changed a bit when he converted because his beliefs changed."
In September 2001, Hammami had just started computer science studies at the University of South Alabama – and been elected head of the Muslim Student Association – when Al Qaeda launched its suicide attacks on the United States....
Read it all here. 
 The Islamic Circle of North America has been named in "a list of our organizations and the organizations of our friends" by the Muslim Brotherhood, which is bent on waging "a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions." They say they want to encourage dialogue via these billboards. Great. I'll start. The billboard says that Islam is "the way of life of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus & Muhammad."
That is a reflection of the Islamic supremacist notion, rooted in the Qur'an (3:67, 5:116, 9:30, etc.), that the Biblical prophets taught Islam, and their messages were corrupted by their followers to create what we know of today as Judaism and Christianity. In this view, Judaism and Christianity have no legitimacy whatsoever: they are renegade, twisted, hijacked versions of the original Islam. So my question is: How does ICNA hope to encourage dialogue by making a declaration at the outset that Judaism and Christianity are false, renegade religions? Wouldn't it be more likely to encourage dialogue if ICNA, instead of simply trying to convert people to Islam (which is really what this call to "dialogue" is all about), acknowledged the supremacist aspects of some Islamic texts and teachings, and offered a way forward for Muslims that would blunt the potential of those supremacist texts and teachings to incite believers to hatred and violence? That is always way too much to ask. But if this call to "dialogue" were genuine, it would be merely Step One. "Billboards going up to promote Islam," by Bob Von Sternberg for the Star Tribune, December 15 (thanks to Block Ness): Hoping to encourage interfaith dialogue, an Islamic organization will unveil a pair of billboards in Minneapolis this week. The Minnesota chapter of the Islamic Circle of North America plans to unveil the billboards Friday, the eve of the Islamic New Year. The billboards will be located along Hiawatha Avenue in south Minneapolis and Central Avenue on the north side. They are part of a nationwide multimedia campaign that also includes placing posters on buses and subways in other big cities. The billboards will display a toll-free telephone number where people can get answers to questions about Islam, as well as obtain free copies of the Qur'an and other Islamic literature. "Got Questions? Get Answers," the billboard states. In a prepared statement, the campaign's organizers are quoted as saying, "Islam is often a misunderstood religion, leading some to hold bias view of Islam with discrimination and suspicion of Muslims. This ad campaign will provide an opportunity for the people of Twin Cities to take a fresh and positive look at Islam." With thanks to JihadWatch
 The saga of the Somali-Amercans recruited by al-Shabaab continues. From CAN: The Star Tribune of Minneapolis-St.Paul, M.N., reports that a Somali-American from Minneapolis has been arrested by the Dutch authorities for financing efforts to recruit and ship up to 20 other Somali-Americans from the area to their native land to join the al-Shabaab terrorist group. The group has pledged allegiance Osama Bin Laden and is considered an affiliate of Al-Qaeda.
The man’s identity has not been released but is believed to have left the U.S. in November 2008 and re-settled in the Netherlands one month later. No press accounts gave insight as to where he traveled to in between the two countries. “I would think that we have seen some information that the leaders would like to undertake operations outside of Somalia,” said FBI Director Robert Mueller this month to the Senate Homeland Security Committee, referring to the Al-Shabaab group. Several Somali-Americans were indicted in July for recruiting young Somalis in the Minneapolis area. FoxNews.com reported at the time that the investigation into disappearing Somalis had expanded from Minneapolis and now included Seattle, Columbus, Cincinnati, Boston and San Diego. At least two Americans have been killed in Somalia after joining the al-Shabaab terrorist group, including the first American suicide bomber. The president of Somalia’s transitional government, which is fighting al-Shabaab for control of the country, claims that up to 1,100 non-Somalis have joined the terrorist group’s forces. World Threats
 By Tricia Escobedo An online report has identified a Somali-American from Seattle, Washington as one of the suicide bombers who killed 21 peacekeepers in Mogadishu, Somalia last week. The Somali-language Web site Dayniile.com said the bomber lived in Washington until 2007. The report could not independently be confirmed. An FBI spokesman in Seattle, Fred Gutt, said investigators are aware of the report, but he declined to comment about it in detail. When asked if the FBI was looking into the report, Gutt would only say “we have continuing outreach efforts with the (Somali-American) community.” Federal agents have been investigating possible recruiting efforts in the United States by Al-Shabaab, a Somali group with ties to al Qaeda that the U.S. classifies as a terrorist organization. More than a dozen young men of Somali descent have disappeared recently from their homes in and around Minneapolis, Minnesota, which has a sizable Somali population, as does Seattle. At least three have ended up dead in Somalia, community leaders say. Read more here,,,,, Source: CNN
 The al-Qa'ida linked extremist group has been conducting a massive international recruitment among the Somali diaspora to bolster its forces as it fights for control of Mogadishu and the imposition of strict Islamic rule across Somalia. The young men it lures from Western countries such as Britain, Germany, Canada, Australia and the US join a Somali jihad, not a transnational movement such as al-Qa'ida, which has global aspirations. In May, The Times reported that up to 1000 foreign fighters, including Britons, had answered the call to jihad in Somalia and its war-torn capital, Mogadishu. What al-Shabaab cannot do is stop the foreign fighters it has radicalised in its training camps from returning home to attack domestic targets in the name ofIslam. Western intelligence agencies have repeatedly warned of the risk of returning ethnic Somalis doing just that. Al-Shabaab is keen to keep its foreign fighters committed to the Somali jihad. Their efforts are said to have greatly contributed to the Islamists' recent military successes. But to attract such recruits, al-Shabaab's own propaganda plays up its ties with other Islamist insurgencies such as those in Algeria and Chechnya. And al-Qa'ida's promotion of al-Shabaab -- Osama bin Laden has personally urged his followers to join the fight there -- has widened its appeal among Islamist communities around the world with broader concerns than just Somalia. The fear is that an al-Shabaab takeover will make Somalia into a magnet for foreign jihadis seeking training, just as Taliban rule in Afghanistan gave al-Qa'ida a haven to establish training camps where thousands of foreign militants flocked. Al-Shabaab is already drifting towards the kind of dependency on al-Qa'ida that the Taliban developed, allowing the extremist group to call the shots. The US has become the latest Western country to voice concern about the threat of radicalised young recruits returning home from Somalia after the discovery of a huge recruiting ring in the mid-western US city ofMinneapolis. Washington's interference in Somalia, backing the government against al-Shabaab and its allies in the ousted Islamic Courts regime, may have made the West a greater target for al-Shabaab than it ever was. Source: The Australian
Terrorist raids are reported this morning in Melbourne, involving allegations of planned suicide attacks on army installations. Yes, allegedly followers of that faith. UPDATE Hundreds of police are said to be involved. UPDATE 2 Cameron Stewart: Federal and state police, armed with search warrants, swooped on members of the suspected terror cell this morning, as they seek to arrest Australian nationals of Somali and Lebanese background in what will be the second-largest counter-terrorism operation in the nation’s history. The men are expected to be charged with a range of terrorism-related offences. Authorities believe the group is at an advanced stage of preparing to storm an Australian Army base, using automatic weapons, as punishment for Australia’s military involvement in Muslim countries. It is understood the men plan to kill as many soldiers as possible before they are themselves killed. Members of the group have been observed carrying out surveillance… Search warrants for at least 19 properties across Melbourne have been prepared to allow authorities to obtain more evidence against the group, which is believed to number about 18, with a smaller, hardcore element. The suspects include Australians of Somali and Lebanese decent, most of whom are labourers employed in Melbourne’s construction industry, or taxi drivers. It is understood that several members of the group also wanted to travel to Somalia to fight with al-Shabaab, but when travel became difficult, they turned their attention to carrying out a terrorist attack in Australia.
UPDATE 3 More on al-Shabaab: In the summer of 2007, a 28-year-old father of three from Houston, Texas, shocked his country when he became the first American ever to be convicted of receiving military training at a terrorist camp in Somalia. Daniel Maldonado, an offbeat, outspoken young man who sported tattoos and dreadlocks, committed himself to wage jihad outside the United States and went to Somalia to receive training… Maldonado’s training in jihad came from Shabaab al Mujahideen, a group the State Department on Feb. 29, 2008, designated as a highly dangerous foreign terrorist organization. Shabaab al Mujahideen, which espouses radical Islamic rule and has close ties to Al Qaeda, is best known for operating training camps for people seeking a more extreme form of Jihad. It also has been forging relations with Somali pirates who have recently been intercepting and holding for ransom several international shipping vessels. UPDATE 4 Indeed, the senior leadership of Shabaab al-Mujahideen—including Shaykh Mukhtar Abu az-Zubair, Abu Mansour Mukhtar Robow, and others—have all clearly and publicly endorsed the idea of foreign fighters “migrating” to Somalia in order to seek specialized terrorist training and battlefield experience fighting the “crusaders.” ... Support for the recruitment and training of foreign fighters has reached all the way up through the ranks of Shabaab, to the emir of the organization, Shaykh Mukhtar Abu az-Zubair. In an audio recording released on June 1, 2008, Shaykh Mukhtar boasted of how “the Muslim people of Somalia have merged with the most elite fighters from the Shabaab al-Mujahideen Movement… Allah willing, international jihadi units will be launched from the Land of the Two Migrations [the Horn of Africa] to haunt and destroy the infidels and their interests around the world… We are an integral part of the vanguard of the global jihad.” UPDATE 5 From December: Dozens of young Somali men in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area have disappeared in recent months, causing community members and U.S. intelligence officials to fear that they are joining jihadist groups in Somalia… A senior American intelligence source confirms that Somalis have vanished in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Australia, adding that some people from the Caribbean also appear to have left for Somalia. And not all of the people bound for training or jihad in Somalia have a Somali background, the source said. UPDATE 6 Victoria Police: Several people are in custody and a number are assisting with inquiries as a result of a joint counter-terrorism operation in Melbourne this morning involving the Australian Federal Police (AFP), Victoria Police, NSW Police, the NSW Crime Commission and Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO). Police executed 19 search warrants across Melbourne at around 4.30 this morning. Warrants were executed on homes in Glenroy, Carlton, Meadow Heights, Roxburgh Park, Broadmeadows, Westmeadows, Preston, Epping and Colac. Today’s operation involved approximately 400 officers from the Australian Federal Police, Victoria Police and NSW Police. Police believe members of a Melbourne-based group have been undertaking planning to carry out a terrorist attack in Australia and allegedly involved in hostilities in Somalia. UPDATE 7 From December 2007: FEDERAL police are investigating local Muslim leaders over suspicions they are encouraging dozens of young men to return to their homeland to join Islamic jihadis against the Ethiopian-backed Somali forces… It is understood that the investigation has widened following revelations in The Australian that a Somali from Melbourne, Ahmed Ali, who travelled to Somalia in December to fight alongside the Islamic Courts movement, was believed to be working as an interpreter with al-Qa’ida. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade reported in January that Mr Ali had been killed in the fighting… Somali community figures said Mr Ali was one of 30 or 40 Australian Somalis who have returned to fight since last December… The Australian revealed in October that Mr Ali had been radicalised by Melbourne-based hardline clerics. His mother accused Mohammed Omran - the head of the fundamentalist Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jammah association who describes Osama bin Laden as a “good man” - of turning Mr Ali into a hardliner… Mr Ali was working as an imam at Eight Black, a prayer hall mainly attended by Somalis in north Melbourne, before he travelled overseas last year. UPDATE 8 From 2007: YOUNG Somali refugees in Melbourne are being seduced by Muslim extremists, a Somali community leader has warned. Herse Hilole, a Sydney community leader and Islamic scholar, fears the recruits could be used in terrorism attacks in Australia. He said some Somalis were being influenced by radical Lebanese from a hardline Wahhabi group… He told The Age extremists from Somalia visited last year to gather money and support and that one of their most important allies was the Somali mosque in North Melbourne. Leaders at the mosque declined to speak to The Age but worshippers say the mosque, in Racecourse Road, is a community centre… Other Melbourne Somali leaders denied that Australian Somalis were engaged in jihad, in Somalia or Australia… Somali Council of Australia president Salaad Ali Ibrahim said the claims were misleading. Mr Ibrahim said most Australian Somalis — more than 10,000 — lived in Melbourne. There was no danger from them, he said… Dr Hilole told The Age that Muslim extremists fell into two groups in Australia: those promoting political Islam, such as Sheikh Taj al-Din al-Hilali, and those who supported jihad, such as Salafis (ultra-conservatives), who controlled some mosques and schools. He said Somalis who supported the Islamic Courts movement, and there were many, did not want to integrate with Australian society. UPDATE 9 Kuwait Times, last month: Somalia’s hardline Islamist rebels beheaded seven people yesterday for being ‘Christians’ and ‘spies’ in the latest imposition of strict sharia, Islamic law, by the Al-Qaeda-linked Al Shabaab group, witnesses said. UPDATE 10 From last month: The mother and a friend of an Australian man held hostage in Somalia for almost a year have confronted Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to express their frustration over his plight. Bundaberg photojournalist Nigel Brennan was kidnapped in Somalia along with a Canadian journalist 11 months ago. UPDATE 11 A reminder, too, how you were once misled:
CHRISTINE Nixon yesterday confirmed it. She did mislead us on crime rates of African refugees. It’s actually four times worse than she’d claimed. .. Just before last year’s federal election, (the then Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police) embarrassed the Howard government’s immigration minister, Kevin Andrews, by contradicting his warnings that the crime rates among Somali and Sudanese refugees were high. Not so, said Nixon: “Those Sudanese refugees are actually under-represented in the crime statistics.” She was silent on the crime rate among Somalis, but repeated: “The young Sudanese who actually come into custody or dealt with us, only really make up about 1 per cent of the people we deal with . . . (W)hat we’re actually seeing is that they’re not, in a sense, represented more than the proportion of them in the population.” Source: Andrew Bolt
A sad, scary story in Minneapolis' Somali community is getting worse with news that Zakaria Maruf was killed Saturday in Somalia. He becomes the fourth Minneapolis area Somali to die in his homeland in the past year. Maruf was featured in this New York Times report published Sunday, where he was cast as a recruiter trying to lure more young Somalis to join him in fighting with the Al-Shabab terrorist group. It isn't clear how Maruf died. Two days earlier, a 20-year-old named Jamal Bana was seen on a website dead from a gunshot to the head, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports. In June, Burhan Hassan was shot and killed apparently after deciding to quit Al-Shabab and return to Minnesota. Last October, Shirwa Ahmed became the first known American to carry out a suicide bombing, driving an explosive-laden truck into a government compound as part of a series of Al-Shabab attacks. The FBI reportedly has criminal investigations in Minneapolis and several other cities into the recruitment of the Somalis and the financing of their travel back to their homeland. More than 20 young men are believed to have made the journey to join the Somali jihad, with Maruf being one of the first. Read more ...Source: IPT Blog
April 06 | Mike Levine Two young Americans who left their homes to join an Al Qaeda-linked terrorist group in Somalia held a rare “press conference” in Southern Somalia on Monday, saying they want to be killed “for the sake of God,” according to a U.S. law enforcement official and a video posted on a Somali news Web site. For several months the FBI has been investigating at least 20 Somali-American men from the Minneapolis area and elsewhere in the United States who traveled to war-torn Somalia to join the terrorist group al-Shabaab, which has been warring with the moderate Somali government since 2006. Last month, a source familiar with the FBI investigation told FOX News that “several” of the men had returned to the United States, while others “are still there [in Somalia]." Today is the first time any of these men have spoken publicly. "We came from the U.S. with a good life and a good education, but we came to fight alongside our brothers of al-Shabaab … to be killed for the sake of God,” one man said in the video, as translated by Omar Jamal, the executive director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center in St. Paul, Minn. In the video, two men, identifying themselves as Abu-Muslim and Abu Yaxye, say they are “Somali youth” from the United States who are now stationed near the city of Kismayo, more than 300 miles southwest of Mogadishu, according to Jamal. The men say they are talking to media for the first time so others can learn why they joined al-Shabaab, he said. A spokesman from the FBI Field Office in Minneapolis, E.K. Wilson, said he is “aware of the video,” which was posted on the Web site dowladnimo.com. He said the video was first brought to his office’s attention early Sunday. Wilson would not say whether the FBI has identified the men in the video. At their press conference, the men did not say exactly how many other U.S. citizens have joined al-Shabaab, but they insisted that “many” Somali-Americans are now “all over Somalia to join the Jihad,” according to Jamal's translation. “Some of us are still in training, others are on the frontline of the Jihad,” Abu-Muslim said in the video, according to Jamal. “Sadly a few of us are dead, one of whom carried out a suicide bombing.” In October 2008, Shirwa Ahmed — a 27-year-old college student from Minneapolis — became what the FBI calls “the first known American suicide bomber” when he blew himself up in Somalia, killing dozens. The men in the new video said they want others like Ahmed to fight in Somalia, according to Jamal. “We are here to invite others to come and join us" said Abu Yaxye, as translated by Jamal. Asked why any missing Somali-Americans might be speaking out now, Wilson, the FBI spokesman in Minneapolis, said, “We do not want to speculate on the motivation behind it.” This comes a week after another video featuring an American in Somalia surfaced online. But unlike the new video, which is essentially a news story covering a “press conference,” the video posted last week is a highly polished production with the primary intent of recruiting foreign youth. It was a "clear appeal to foreign youth, especially in English-speaking countries, to join the jihad in Somalia," according to the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), which first provided the video to Fox News. In the 30-minute video, featuring an anti-American hip-hop score and images of Usama bin Laden, a man dubbed "The American" purportedly leads a group of al-Shabaab militants in an ambush of Ethiopian forces, which oppose an Islamic state and have backed the new Somali government. “If you can encourage more of your children and more of your neighbors, anyone around, to send people like him to this jihad it would be a great asset for us," the so-called “American” says in the video, which was posted on an Islamist web site. A law enforcement official confirmed to FOX News that the man, identified in the video as Abu Mansur al-Amriki, is originally from the United States, but said he has been in Somalia “for some time.” The official said the man is in his late 20s or early 30s, and left the United States “many” years ago. The FBI investigation into how young American men were recruited to join al-Shabaab in Somalia is active in Columbus, Ohio; Cincinnati, Ohio; Boston; Seattle; and San Diego, according to testimony from counterterrorism officials and others at a Senate hearing last month. But, officials said, there is no intelligence to indicate that Somali-Americans who traveled to Somalia are planning attacks inside the United States. The source familiar with the FBI investigation would not say publicly if authorities know the whereabouts of the men who returned to the United States, nor would the source say if authorities are pursuing arrests in the case. But Muslim leaders in the Minneapolis area told FOX News that they believe arrests are coming. “It will be a big relief for the community once this comes to an end,” Jamal said. Source: FoxNews
 The Somali faithful at the mosque in questionBy Mike Levine Federal authorities are looking to bring terror-related charges against one or more Somali-Americans from the Minneapolis area, and witnesses to the case have been subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury, according to a Muslim leader in the area and a woman who said she testified before the grand jury this morning. For several months the FBI has been investigating about a dozen Somali-American men who disappeared from their homes in the Minneapolis area late last year and may have joined terrorist groups overseas. One of the men, 27-year-old Shirwa Ahmed, later blew himself up in Somalia. The FBI recently called him the first U.S. citizen to carry out a suicide bombing, and FBI Director Mueller said he was "radicalized in his hometown in Minnesota." The FBI has interviewed at least 50 people in the Somali community and subpoenaed at least 10 people to testify before a grand jury in Minneapolis, according to Farhan Hurre, the director of the Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic Center in St. Paul, one of the largest mosques in the Twin Cities. He said most of those subpoenaed are students at the University of Minnesota. At least two of the men still missing were students at the University of Minnesota. Read more ...Source: Fox NewsH/T: Jihad Watch
We've seen the antisemetism which always is present at every "pro-Palestinian" rally. We also know that in Gaza the Islamists of Hamas are systematically eliminating the secularists of Fatah. What we haven't seen, though, is this Hamas vs. Fatah fight in the US. Instead, united by their hatred for Israel and Jews, they lay aside their differences. But here is some evidence that the conflict is beginning to spill over on to our streets.
Stick with the whole thing. America's first Muslim Congressman, Kieth Ellison (D-MN) is booed by the Hamas supporters when he wouldn't condemn someone. I'm not sure if they want him to condemn Israel or Fatah for not supporting Hamas' war. In any event, only the self-delusioned, like Ellison, would expect anything different at such a rally. Source: Minnesotans Against TerrorH/T: The Jawa Report
Not surprising from a state where Muslim cab drivers refuse to pick up passengers with alcohol or dogs, where local colleges install Islamic foot baths, the airport installs Islamic prayer rooms, where Islamic school administrators don’t know how to raise the American flag, and where a Muslim congressman refuses to condemn Muslim American Society for the violent and anti-Semitic statements found on the group’s website. Read more ...Source: Creeping Sharia
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One of the most visible leaders of an Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist militia in Somalia spent a year in Toronto ingratiating himself into the Somali immigrant community as a convert to Islam.
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