Recently in Somalia Category

This report hints that a possible target was a hotel frequented by politicians, but al-Shabaab couldn't care less who was caught in the crossfire. "Somalia: Al-Shabab bombs Mogadishu cafe," from BBC News, February 8:

At least 10 people have been killed and more than 20 people injured when a car bomb exploded near a cafe in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, police say.

A police commander told the BBC it was a suicide attack.

The vehicle was parked close to the Hotel Muna, often frequented by Somali politicians and itself the target of an attack by militants in August 2010.

The Islamist militant group al-Shabab has claimed responsibility for the afternoon blast.

Wednesday's attack is the latest of a series of suicide attacks staged by the Al-Qaeda-linked group in Mogadishu - after being pushed out last August by the Somali government and African Union troops.

Drinking tea

The BBC's Mohammed Dhore in Mogadishu says that seven people died at the scene, and three more after being taken to hospital.

Our correspondent says many of the injured have been hurt seriously.

He says people were drinking tea at a popular cafe in the heart of Mogadishu's government district, when the bomb exploded.

"There was a heavy explosion, a car full of explosives was detonated," MP Mohamed Iro told the AFP news agency....

"The Americans' suicide attacks and speeches are meant to attract other Americans."

As this report notes, sometimes they "attract" a different set of Americans than they intended, like Navy SEALs who are interested in finding them before they export their new-found expertise back home. "Americans Rise in Rank Inside Somalia Jihadi Group," by Jennie Olson for the Associated Press, January 13:

The October al-Qaida video shows a light-skinned man handing out food to families displaced by famine in Somalia. But the masked man is not Somali, or even African - he's a Wisconsin native who grew up in San Diego.

A handful of young Muslims from the U.S. are taking high-visibility propaganda and operational roles inside an al-Qaida-linked insurgent force in Somalia known as al-Shabab. While most are from Minnesota, which has the largest Somali population in the nation, al-Shabab members include a Californian and an Alabaman with no ancestral ties to Somalia.

"They are being deployed in roles that appear to be shrewdly calculated to raise al-Shabab's international profile and to recruit others, especially those from the United States and other English-speaking countries," said Anders Folk, a former assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted suspected al-Shabab supporters in Minnesota.

Officials fear another terrorist attack in East Africa. Kenya announced on Jan. 7 that it had thwarted attempted al-Shabab attacks over the holidays. The same day, Britain's Foreign Office urged Britons in Kenya to be extra vigilant, warning that terrorists there may be "in the final stages of planning attacks."

More than 40 people have traveled from the U.S. to Somalia to join al-Shabab since 2007, and 15 of them have died, according to a report from the House Homeland Security Committee. Federal investigations into al-Shabab recruitment in the U.S. have centered on Minnesota, which has more than 32,000 Somalis.

At least 21 men have left Minnesota to join al-Shabab in that same time. The FBI has confirmed that at least two of them died in Somalia as suicide bombers. A U.S. citizen is suspected in a third suicide bombing, and another is under investigation in connection with a fourth bombing on Oct. 29 that killed 15 people.

The star of the al-Qaida video was Jehad Mostafa, 30, a Californian who handed out food using the name Abu Abdullah al-Muhajir, according to the SITE Monitoring Service. The Washington Post reported last year that Mostafa served as top lieutenant to Saleh Nabhan, a senior al-Qaida operative killed by Navy SEALs in a helicopter attack inside Somalia in 2010. [...]

U.S. military commanders fear that Americans inside al-Shabab could train as bombmakers and use their U.S. passports to carry out attacks in the United States.

E.K. Wilson, the agent overseeing the FBI's investigation in Minneapolis, said he cannot comment on whether there is an outstanding order to capture or kill Americans fighting for al-Shabab. The FBI has publicly said the Americans should return to the U.S.

It's a mystery what caused Mostafa, a young man whom many remember as mild and friendly, to join an extremist group.

Mostafa grew up in San Diego and graduated from the University of California San Diego. Imam Abdeljalil Mezgouri of the Islamic Center of San Diego, the city's largest mosque, said Mostafa was a respectful teen and good student.

"He was a very quiet, very loving boy. He didn't talk too much but when he did talk, people liked him," said Mezgouri.

Mezgouri said Mostafa got married in his early 20s to a woman he believed was from Somalia.

Public records show Mostafa was the president of the now-defunct Muslim Youth Council of San Diego, or MYCSD. The former organization's Web site says the group was "dedicated to showing the world that Islam is a religion of peace and Muslims are a peaceful and productive part of society." [...]

Mostafa is believed to have met American militant Anwar al-Awlaki about a decade ago at a San Diego mosque, according to The Washington Post. He went to Somalia in 2005. Federal officials declined to comment. [...]

The son of a Christian mother and a Syrian-born Muslim father, [Omar] Hammami attended Daphne High School. Then-assistant principal Don Blanchard recalls Hammami as generally well liked.

"Omar I would not classify as a troubled kid," said Blanchard.

Hammami enrolled at the University of South Alabama, where he was president of the Muslim Student Association. Following the 2001 terror attacks, Hammami spoke to the student newspaper.

"Even now it's difficult to believe a Muslim could have done this," The Vanguard quoted Hammami as saying.

How about now?

Hammami went to Somalia in 2006. He was indicted in 2007 on terrorism charges, and faced more charges in 2009 for providing material support to terrorists.

Hammami, who wears a long beard and often raps in al-Shabab videos, released a nearly 50 minute lecture in October to commemorate five years with the group. He spouts hatred for "Western oppression." In the video, provided to AP by the IntelCenter, he compares his upbringing in America with his life in Somalia, where he says a microwave - "or even a normal oven" – is a rarity.

The English speaker serves as a recruiter and fund-raiser and is one of the top people in charge of al-Shabab's foreign fighters, Kohlmann said.

Hammami attends morning fighting drills and motivates new recruits, former al-Shabab fighter Abdi Hassan told AP. Hammami avoids mobile phones for fear intelligence agencies will trace him, and uses pseudonyms on the Internet.

Girly-man jihad:

"He sometimes cries with emotion, which makes others cry with him," said Hassan. He added, "Every new American is asked to convince his friends to come. The Americans' suicide attacks and speeches are meant to attract other Americans."

Muslim spokesmen such as Salam al-Marayati, M. Cherif Bassiouni, and Ali Eteraz, all of whom (among many others) assure us that Islam has no death penalty for apostasy, despite Muhammad's words, "Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him" (Bukhari 9.84.57). Somehow these Somali Muslims have misunderstood Islam in the same way Muhammad did. But they didn't kill her, so apparently they're moderates.

"Somali Convert from Islam Whipped in Public," from Compass Direct News, January 10 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

NAIROBI, Kenya, January 10 (CDN) — A Somali convert from Islam was paraded before a cheering crowd last month and publicly flogged as a punishment for embracing a “foreign religion,” sources said. Sofia Osman, a 28-year-old Christian from Janale city in Somali’as Lower Shabelle region, had been taken into custody by Islamic extremist al Shabaab militants in November; the public whipping was meant to mark her release. She received 40 lashes on Dec. 22 while jeered by spectators.

“Osman was whipped 40 lashes at 3 p.m., but she didn’t tell what other humiliations she had suffered while in the hands of the militants,” an eyewitness, told Compass, adding that whipping left her bleeding. “I saw her faint. I thought she had died, but soon she regained consciousness and her family took her away.”

The whipping was administered in front of hundreds of spectators after Osman was released from her month-long custody in al Shabaab camps. Nursing her injuries at her family’s home, in the days after the punishment she would not talk to anyone and looked dazed, a source close in touch with the family said. She has since been relocated.

“Please pray for her quick recovery,” the source said.

Janale, one Somalia’s major cities, is about 200 kilometers (124 miles) from Mogadishu.

Osman became a Christian four years ago and was a member of the underground church in the war-torn Horn of Africa country largely controlled by the al Qaeda-linked militants from al Shabaab....

The Qur'an sanctions sex with captive and slave women: "And all married women (are forbidden unto you) save those (captives) whom your right hands possess. It is a decree of Allah for you" (4:24). Al-Shabaab is acting barbarically, but as far as they are concerned, they are acting within their rights and not forbidding what Allah has made lawful. They are not at all alone among Muslims in endorsing or engaging in this behavior.

"For Somali Women, Pain of Being a Spoil of War," by Jeffrey Gettleman for the New York Times, December 28 (thanks to Bill):

MOGADISHU, Somalia — The girl’s voice dropped to a hush as she remembered the bright, sunny afternoon when she stepped out of her hut and saw her best friend buried in the sand, up to her neck.

Her friend had made the mistake of refusing to marry a Shabab commander. Now she was about to get her head bashed in, rock by rock.

“You’re next,” the Shabab warned the girl, a frail 17-year-old who was living with her brother in a squalid refugee camp.

Several months later, the men came back. Five militants burst into her hut, pinned her down and gang-raped her, she said. They claimed to be on a jihad, or holy war, and any resistance was considered a crime against Islam, punishable by death.

“I’ve had some very bad dreams about these men,” she said, having recently escaped the area they control. “I don’t know what religion they are.”

Somalia has been steadily worn down by decades of conflict and chaos, its cities in ruins and its people starving. Just this year, tens of thousands have died from famine, with countless others cut down in relentless combat. Now Somalis face yet another widespread terror: an alarming increase in rapes and sexual abuse of women and girls.

The Shabab militant group, which presents itself as a morally righteous rebel force and the defender of pure Islam, is seizing women and girls as spoils of war, gang-raping and abusing them as part of its reign of terror in southern Somalia, according to victims, aid workers and United Nations officials. Short of cash and losing ground, the militants are also forcing families to hand over girls for arranged marriages that often last no more than a few weeks and are essentially sexual slavery, a cheap way to bolster their ranks’ flagging morale. [...]

Somalia is a deeply traditional place, where 98 percent of girls are subject to genital cutting, according to United Nations figures. Most girls are illiterate and relegated to their homes. When they venture out, it is usually to work, trudging through the rubble-strewn alleyways wrapped head to toe in thick black cloth, often lugging something on their back, the equatorial sun burning down on them. [...]

At the same time, aid workers and United Nations officials say the Shabab, who are fighting Somalia’s transitional government and imposing a harsh version of Islam in the areas they control, can no longer pay their several thousand fighters the way they used to. Much as they seize crops and livestock, giving their militants what they call “temporary wives” is how the Shabab keep many young men fighting for them.

But these are hardly marriages, said Sheik Mohamed Farah Ali, a former Shabab commander who defected to the government army.

“There’s no cleric, no ceremony, nothing,” he said, adding that Shabab fighters had even paired up with thin little girls as young as 12, who are left torn and incontinent afterward. If a girl refuses, he said, “she’s killed by stones or bullets.” [...]

“You have no idea how difficult it is for them to come forward,” she said. “There’s no justice here, no protection. People say, ‘You’re junk’ if you’ve been raped.”...

How exactly are the people in question "Britons" at all? Some or all were born there, and maybe a few like fish and chips or soccer, but in what way is their outlook on life in any recognizable sense "British"? These men are jihadis, plain and simple. Their outlook on life is an Islamic one that disdains national distinctions and non-Muslim jahili polities. But Andrew Mitchell has no conceptual framework in which he can fit such people except ones that are irrelevant for any useful analysis of their motives and goals. A massive paradigm shift is needed among the British and American governing elites, but no such thing is in the offing.

And meanwhile, what is being done in Britain itself to prevent Muslims and converts to Islam from being "radicalized" to the extent that they go to Somalia to wage jihad? Nothing much beyond outreach to stealth jihadi Islamic supremacist groups who pay lip-service to anti-jihad efforts while aiding and abetting such efforts inside mosques and madrassas.

"More Britons terror-training in Somalia: minister," from the Associated Press, December 22 (thanks to Block Ness):

LONDON: Britain’s international development minister says there are now more people from the UK training for terrorism in camps in Somalia than anywhere else in the world.

Andrew Mitchell said Thursday that Somalia poses a major threat, which may now be greater than the risks once posed by camps in Pakistan’s border regions.

Mitchell said “there are probably more British passport-holders engaged in terrorist training in Somalia than in any other country in the world.”...

"In an effort to cut off funds to Somali terrorists, banks in Minnesota will no longer support money transfers via local businesses called 'hawalas.'” But the Useful Idiot Franken, with a typical Leftist inversion of reality, says that if they do this, the terrorists win: ”Ending remittances from the United States would be a victory for al Shabab which could claim America was preventing needed funds from getting to suffering Somalis."

Of course. They'll say whatever they have to in order to come out on top. But that should not be a factor in whether or not Minnesota banks are used to fund jihad.

"Minnesota banks to stop money transfers to Somalia," from the Homeland Security News Wire, December 13 (thanks to Mark):

In an effort to cut off funds to Somali terrorists, banks in Minnesota will no longer support money transfers via local businesses called “hawalas”; Minnesota has the largest concentration of Somalis in the United States and officials fear that money sent from relatives living in the United States could be funding terrorist groups like al Shabaab

Al Shabaab receives much of it's funding through halawas // Source: tigraionline.com

In an effort to cut off funds to Somali terrorists, banks in Minnesota will no longer support money transfers via local businesses called “hawalas.”

Minnesota has the largest concentration of Somalis in the United States and officials fear that money sent from relatives living in the United States could be funding terrorist groups like al Shabaab.

On 15 December, Franklin Bank, the last remaining bank to support hawalas, will discontinue its wire services to Somalia, which has Somalis in Minnesota panicking. Without hawalas Somalis worry that their families in their home country will have no way of supporting themselves.

Somalia’s financial infrastructure is largely inexistent and many families there depend on remittances from relatives living abroad to survive. To make matters worse, Somalia is currently experiencing one of its worst famines in history.

“This is going to have a massive negative effect on Somali, Kenyan, and Ethiopian populations who are facing one of the worst recorded famines and droughts in recent history,” said Aden Hassan, a spokesman for the Somali American Money Wiring Association

The CIA estimates that Somalia receives roughly $1.6 billion in remittances each year from around the world.

According to Hassen, sending money through hawalas is relatively easy for individuals, but banks who execute the transfers must complete a complicated series of steps to comply with federal standards to ensure that funds are not being sent to terrorist groups there.

New financial regulations were put in place following the 9/11 attacks to crack down on funding to terrorist organizations, which resulted in Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, and TCF from dropping its support to hawalas.

In Minnesota, Sunrise Community Banks, a local family owned bank which runs Franklin Bank, began working with the Somali community to service hawalas three years ago, but made its most recent decision to end their relationship due to several recent incidents where individuals in the United States were arrested for financing al Shabaab using the hawala system.

In October two Somali women living in Rochester, Minnesota were convicted of funneling money to al Shabaab using hawalas. The two women were accused of going door to door in an effort to raise funds for the terrorist organization. Meanwhile, earlier this month, a woman in San Diego pled guilty to sending money to al Shabaab fighters using hawalas.

David Reiling, the CEO of Sunrise Community Banks, said the bank’s decision was difficult to make given the urgent humanitarian crisis in the region but ultimately concerns over terrorism prevailed.

Reiling said the bank plans to develop a solution that will allow Somalis to safely transfer money without it falling into the hands of terrorist.

“My bank wants to continue wiring money to Somalia but has to find a way to remove the risk,” he said. “The sheer magnitude, of the human need, weighs very heavily on my shoulders. Yes we have a banking issue and we all want to ensure that money does not get into the wrong hands. I think it’s up to all of us to try to find a solution.”

Until a solution is reached, however, “the only way we know at the moment to mitigate that risk is to close these accounts until we can find another solution to work with government to re-establish those lines,” Reiling said.

To help ensure that Somalis in Minnesota can send money to their families, Senator Al Franken (D – Minnesota) has sent letters to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner urging them to explore alternative methods to transfer money.

”Ending remittances from the United States would be a victory for al Shabab which could claim America was preventing needed funds from getting to suffering Somalis,” Franken said.

The old name meant "The Youth," in the most common translation in the American media. Now, they're going for the image of a more mature bloodthirsty, paranoid jihadist thug. "Al-Shabaab terrorists change name which means 'lads' because its leaders are all getting old," by Dan Newling for the Daily Mail, December 6:

Somalia’s Al-Shabaab terrorist group has changed its name from 'The Lads' in an attempt to project a more mature image.

The military group, which is responsible for killing thousands in Somalia’s 20-year civil war, announced the name change this week.

It will now call itself Imaarah Islamiya (The Islamic Authority), the Somalia Report news service said.

Mukhtaar Robow, a spokesman for the group said: 'Al-Shabaab means "youth" but many of us, including the leaders, are very old so we want to change the name to Imaarah Islamiya.'

And unlike the group Menudo, they can't just swap out a member when he hits a certain age.

The announcement came after the militant group held a week-long meeting at Baidoa in the war-torn country’s south west.

At the meeting, the leaders discussed the recent setbacks that have seen it seed control of territory to the international-community-backed Transitional Federation Government.

Al-Shabaab’s full name is Harakaad al-Shabaab al-Mukaahidiin (Movement of the Warrior Young Men).

'Al-Shabaab' is an Arabic word which translates as 'Male Youth', 'Boys' or 'Lads'.

The 14,000 strong group was formed in 2006 after Somalia’s then-dominant Islamic Courts Union was removed from power in the country.

Its stated aims are to control Somalia, establish it as a 'pure' Islamic state and to wage holy war against the 'enemies of Islam'.

Designated a terrorist organisation by most western governments, it has kidnapped and murdered foreign aid workers and is alleged to be involved in piracy.

Nothing says "gratitude" for refugee status like turning around and helping the main reason Somalia is hemorrhaging refugees. "Somali refugee acknowledges aiding terror group," from the Associated Press, December 1 (thanks to Kenneth):

A Somali refugee living in San Diego pleaded guilty in federal court Thursday to aiding four men who left Minnesota to join a Somali terror group, including one man who is suspected of carrying out a suicide bombing in the African nation in October.

Prosecutors have said Nima Yusuf conspired in Southern California and elsewhere to aid al-Shabab, an al-Qaida-linked militia trying to create an Islamic state in Somalia. As part of her plea, the 25-year-old permanent resident of the U.S. acknowledged that she agreed to help the men with money and personnel.

Over the past three years, Minnesota has been the center of a federal investigation into the recruitment of people from the U.S. to train or fight with al-Shabab in Somalia, which hasn't had a functioning government since 1991.

Twenty people have been charged in the state in connection with the travelers and alleged terror financing. Others have been charged in St. Louis with funneling money to the terror group, and Yusuf was among four people charged in San Diego in late 2010 with helping al-Shabab.

Yusuf acknowledged to prosecutors that she knew the four men had left the United States to become fighters for al-Shabab. She said she sent $1,450 between February 2010 and November 2010, and also acknowledged lying to federal officials twice when she denied that she had sent money to Somalia.

The men - Abdisalan Hussein Ali, Mohamed Abdullahi Hassan, Cabdulaahi Ahmed Faarax and Abdiweili Yassin Isse - are accused of fighting for al-Shabab and are charged in a separate federal indictment in Minnesota.

Authorities have said they believe Ali and Hassan left Minneapolis for Somalia at different instances in 2008. Members of the city's Somali community fear Ali carried out a suicide bombing on Oct. 29 in Mogadishu that Somali authorities said killed 15 people.

Al-Shabab released a recording of the alleged bomber, who the group identified as a Somali-American, Abdisalan Taqabalahullaah. One of Ali's relatives told the AP he listened to the recording and believes it was Ali's voice.

The FBI hasn't confirmed the identity of the bomber's remains. If they are confirmed to belong to Ali, it will mark the third time someone from Minnesota has been involved in a suicide attack in Somalia.

According to court testimony and documents, Faarax and Isse left Minnesota in a rental car on Oct. 5, 2009, and headed south to the U.S.-Mexico border. At the San Ysidro border crossing in San Diego, they told a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officer that they were flying from Tijuana to Mexico City. They ultimately made their way to Somalia.

Federal officials wouldn't say whether Yusuf had contact with Faarax and Isse while they were in the San Diego area.

Yusuf faces up to 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. She remains in jail without bail. Her plea is subject to final acceptance by U.S. District Judge Barry Ted Moskowitz at or before sentencing on Feb. 10.

People will die, and al-Shabaab does not care. Controlling the flow of aid allows them to starve out resistance.

The charge of "misappropriating funds" is particularly curious. It's certainly not al-Shabaab's money that groups like UNICEF and the World Health Organization were spending, but clearly, al-Shabaab has made it their business to mind the business of everyone in the territory under their control. The other charges are certainly par for the course under the group's paranoid, supremacist rule. More on this story. "Banned aid agencies warn disaster in Somalia," by Malkhadir M. Muhumed for the Associated Press, November 29:

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Aid workers and Somali residents expressed outrage Tuesday, a day after the militant group al-Shabab banned 16 aid groups from its territory, a decision officials said puts tens of thousands of sick mothers and malnourished children at risk.

Tens of thousands of Somalis have already died from drought and famine-related causes this year, and the U.N. estimates that 250,000 people still face starvation in a country plagued by violence.

Somalis expressed sadness and anger at al-Shabab's decision, one that could further damage a group highly unpopular in many Somali circles because of its strict social rules and harsh punishments like amputations [Qur'an 5:33, 5:38 - ed.] and stonings.

In other words, enforcing Sharia.

Al-Shabab on Monday ordered UNICEF, the World Health Organization and the Danish Refugee Council, among others, to leave.

"Without their help, our children will return to starvation and malnutrition," said Ahmed Awnor, a community leader in Hiraan in west-central Somalia.

Aid groups warned of disaster if the ban stays in place. UNICEF said thousands of children could die if its operations are stopped. UNICEF supports health centers treating tens of thousands of malnourished children, provides access to clean water and carries out vaccinations against measles.

"We are extremely concerned as any disruption to our assistance is like unplugging life support for many children, especially for the 160,000 severely malnourished children in south-central Somalia," said Jaya Murthy of UNICEF Somalia.

Al-Shabab began banning aid groups like the World Food Program in 2009, though it allowed some to operate. The militant force has long accused outside groups of spying and on Monday accused the 16 groups of misappropriating funds, collecting data, and promoting secularism, immorality and the "degrading values of democracy in an Islamic country."

"It's a disgusting decision. It will force us back to famine and misery again," said Ahmed Khalif, a Somali elder in Baidoa town. "The difficult tasks the aid agencies have done to fight the famine are only half-done."

Al-Shabab said it carried out a "meticulous yearlong review and investigation" that documented "the illicit activities and misconducts [sic] of some of the organizations."

Rashid Abdi, a Somalia analyst with the International Crisis Group, said al-Shabab's action could be motivated by "anger at the West's acquiescence to Kenya's intervention" in Somalia. Hundreds of Kenyan forces moved into Somalia last month to fight al-Shabab.

Abdi also said al-Shabab may have failed to extract the benefits and concessions it wanted from the agencies operating in areas under its control. The militants have been known to force aid groups to pay "taxes" or other fees.

The Danish Refugee Council said militants took over its offices in Belet Weyne and Bulo Burte in Hiraan region. The group called al-Shabab's decision "a sad development" as Somalis are "in dire need of humanitarian aid due to drought and years of armed conflict." The group provides shelter, aid packages and daily meals for tens of thousands of internally displaced people in the capital, Mogadishu.

"The struggling people of Somalia need all the help they can get, therefore we hope and trust that we and the other organizations involved are soon again able to resume our humanitarian operations," said Ann Mary Olsen, the head of the council's international department.

Al-Shabab boasts several hundred foreign militants among its ranks, including veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts and U.S. citizens. The foreign fighters are known to take hardline stances inside the group.

Murthy of UNICEF said his agency's office in Baidoa was occupied after the staff was ordered to leave. Although UNICEF has in the past few years weathered brief disruptions in Somalia, this is the first time it has to stop operations since its arrival in the early 1970s, he said.

The U.N. refugee agency says more than two-thirds of Somalia's estimated 1.46 million internally displaced people live in southern and central parts of the country — al-Shabab land — and humanitarian needs there are immense.

The World Health Organization supports eight hospitals and 16 mobile clinics that cater to tens of thousands of people in the affected regions. The ban "can undermine the fragile progress made this year, and could bring back famine conditions in several areas," said the WHO's Pieter Desloovere.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday condemned al-Shabab for seizing property and equipment belonging to the aid groups. He said the disruption in aid threatens to undermine progress made this year against the famine.

Kristalina Georgieva, the European commissioner for international aid, said the aid ban could force thousands of Somalis to flee....

That is, if al-Shabaab lets them.

"The list of groups banned outright included the United Nations children's agency, Unicef, and other UN bodies, the British charity Concern and groups from Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, and Sweden."

Surely the Saudis and other wealthy Islamic states will be there any minute to fill that gap and help their brethren with their vast oil wealth.

(Sound of crickets)

"Somalia's al-Shabab militants close UN aid offices," from BBC News, November 28:

Al-Shabab fighters have closed down several aid agencies working in famine-hit Somalia, including some from the UN, accusing them of political bias.

Militants stormed aid offices in the towns of Baidoa and Beledweyne, which like many southern areas are controlled by al-Shabab, witnesses say.

By controlling the flow of aid, al-Shabaab controls who lives and who dies.

Al-Shabab has long restricted the work of international aid groups but on Monday banned 16 groups outright.

Years of conflict mean Somalia is worst hit by the East African drought.

The lack of rain is said to be the worst in 60 years.

The list of groups banned outright included the United Nations children's agency, Unicef, and other UN bodies, the British charity Concern and groups from Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, and Sweden.

Unicef spokesman Jaya Murthy told the BBC a group of men, suspected to belong to al-Shabab, occupied their offices in Baidoa and ordered staff to leave.

"They just said they [Unicef staff] should go home immediately and our office is now their office," Mr Murthy told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme.

The al-Shabab statement accused the groups of exaggerating the scale of the problems in Somalia for political reasons and to raise money.

'Risk of death'

It also alleges that the agencies are working with church groups trying to convert vulnerable Muslim children and opposing al-Shabab's attempts to impose Sharia law....

Ethiopian and Kenyan self-defense are colonialism, but al-Shabaab's religious and cultural imperialism are A-OK, of course. In addition to its intention of imposing Sharia, the group has shown impulses like those of Sudan's Bashir toward the Arabization of Somalia. Those measures have included banning the teaching of English in schools in favor of Arabic, and tearing down posters in Somali language to replace them with Arabic ones.

An update on this story. "Somalia's Shebab vow to defeat Ethiopian forces," by Ali Musa Abdi for Agence France-Presse, November 20:

Somalia's Shebab rebels warned Ethiopia on Sunday they would "break the necks" of its troops, a day after reports that Addis Ababa sent hundreds of soldiers into the war-torn country.

"Soldiers of our enemy, the black colonialists of Ethiopia, made some movements into our region on Saturday, but they do not scare us," said Sheikh Yusuf Ali Ugas, the insurgent group's commander for the Hiran region.

"We will break the necks of the invaders ... Our troops are ready for anything, if the Ethiopian enemy tries to attack us," Ugas added, speaking on the Al-Qaeda-linked group's radio Al Andalus.

Think jihad globally, wage jihad locally.

Convoys of Ethiopian troops in lorries and armoured vehicles entered southern and central Somali regions, local elders said Saturday, although Addis Ababa has denied all reports.

Hardline Shebab insurgents control much of southern Somalia, but are also battling both the Western-backed government in Mogadishu and Kenyan troops in the far south, who crossed the border last month to attack rebel strongholds.

Kenya said Sunday that its "jets supported by naval fire" had destroyed two Shebab bases in the southern Lower Juba region, army spokesman Major Emmanuel Chirchir said in a statement.

Shebab fighters said they had destroyed a Kenyan navy boat at Madhawa island, south of the rebel-held port of Kismayo early Sunday morning, but Chirchir dismissed the reports, claiming no "warship was sunk or engaged".

The extremist insurgents also claimed Sunday they had ambushed Kenyan forces between the villages of Taabto and Dobley.

"We have ambushed the Kenyan Christian invaders...the mujahideen fighters destroyed one armoured vehicle and killed dozens of the enemy," Sheikh Ibrahim Mohamed, Shebab commander for Kismayo, said.

Kenya's army statement made no mention of the alleged attack, but local elders confirmed there had been heavy fighting.

"We have seen Kenyan military ambulances heading towards the area but I cannot say how many have died in the fighting," said Abdulahi Qorane, an elder.

"We have seen smoke and heard loud explosions but we are not sure if the smoke was a destroyed vehicle -- both sides have exchange heavy fire," said Ahmed Moalim, another elder.

Ethiopian troop convoys were also reported to have entered the south of Somalia after crossing through Kenya, which shares borders with both nations. [...]

"We shall defeat them and fight them any way we can," Shebab commander Ugas said. "The Ethiopian attack is a plan to oppose the implementation of Sharia law in Somalia by the enemies of our Muslim nation."

More bad news for al-Shabaab: more resistance it can't starve into submission. "Ethiopian troops move into Somalia: witnesses," by Abdi Sheikh for the Associated Press, November 19:

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Scores of Ethiopian military vehicles pushed at least 80 km (50 miles) into neighbouring Somalia on Saturday, residents said, five weeks after Kenya entered Somalia to fight Islamist militants it blames for a wave of kidnappings on its soil.

"The Ethiopian troops, which are in convoys of armoured vehicles, come to us today, crossing from Balanbale district on the border," Gabobe Adan, an elder in the central town of Guriel told Reuters.

"They were in about 28 trucks and armed battle wagons - the armed vehicles are very big."

Other residents told Reuters that the Ethiopians had set up a base in Guriel and moved troops to other towns nearby.

Residents and officials in northeast Kenya later told Reuters that Ethiopian troops had also crossed through their towns and taken up positions near bases from where the Kenyan military is launching its offensive.

"We have seen Ethiopian troops. They are clearly known to us," a local named Lesamow Said told Reuters. "They arrived this evening at Damasa. Some of the soldiers crossed over to the Somalia side and started patrolling immediately."

People in the Kenyan town of Mandera, which is near both Somalia and Ethiopia, said the Ethiopians had passed through there in a convoy of 10 trucks and several armoured vehicles.

A spokesman for the Ethiopian government, Shimeles Kemal, would neither confirm nor deny the reports.

Another Ethiopian official told Reuters that an Ethiopian move to support the Kenyan assault on the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab group was likely.

"There is a strong possibility that we will be sending troops to Somalia soon to support Kenya's operation against the al Shabaab extremists," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"Our deployment could either be implemented under the umbrella of AMISOM or under another form, such as a separate operation alongside Kenya," he said. [...]

Senior Kenyan government ministers have shuttled around the east Africa region this week and travelled to the Gulf to drum up political and financial support for a coordinated campaign to rout the rebels.

Some analysts say Ethiopia may want to take advantage of al Shabaab's withdrawal from the capital Mogadishu in August to wipe out a group it sees as a threat to its stability.

Since that pullout, the militants, who want to introduce a strict version of sharia law, have resorted to suicide attacks and guerrilla-style tactics against African Union troops.

Although Ethiopian troops regularly cross the border with Somalia, and it has admitted opening "humanitarian corridors" into the country that it says are for food relief, residents said the numbers and locations of the troops were unusual.

"I have seen about 30 Ethiopian military vehicles myself. They have entered," another Guriel resident, Farah Hussein, told Reuters. "We are very happy to see them -- it is a sign of putting an end to al Shabaab."...

One of the staples of attack pieces on me by Leftist and Islamic supremacist hate groups is something I wrote in 2005: "‘there is no distinction in the American Muslim community between peaceful Muslims and jihadists. While Americans prefer to imagine that the vast majority of American Muslims are civic-minded patriots who accept wholeheartedly the parameters of American pluralism, this proposition has actually never been proven." More is made of this quote than is actually there, since all I meant was actually that there is no institutional distinction, so jihadis move freely in Muslim circles among those who oppose them and claim to do so. In other words, there are no "Islamic supremacist" mosques and "moderate" mosques. There are just mosques, and there are peaceful Muslims and jihadis in them.

Meanwhile, non-Muslim authorities continue to assume that every Muslim who is not an active member of a terrorist group is a moderate who rejects the premises of jihad terror. Here is yet another story that illustrates how unwise that is.

"Norwegian ‘His Majesty the King's Guard’ Dies as terrorist," from Norway News, November 10 (thanks to Benedict):

Norwegian friends found the ‘Norwegian-Somali’ man to be a model soldier. This ‘model soldier’ ended up traveling to Somalia to fight for Allah. 

Without notifying friends or family, the Norwegian-Somali man traveled to Somalia and joined terrorist organization, “al-Shabaab.”

This startling information appears in an unpublished report prepared by the Defense Research Establishment (FFI) and accessed by VG. The report is authored by Stig Jarle Hansen, a world leader in Somalian matters.



PST (Police Security Service) confirmed to VG that the former soldier in His Majesty the King's Guard was killed in combat in March of this year.



PST knew the soldier was killed earlier this year while fighting in Somalia. “There is reason to wonder why a seemingly well-integrated Norwegian citizen would travel to Somalia to join a terrorist organization,” says communications director, Trond Hugubakken of Police Security Service’s (PST).




The 27-year-old is the first known Norwegian citizen who has been killed fighting for a terrorist organization. He died in March this year, allegedly in a battle with Somali government forces. 



In 2005 and 2006, he served with the military service of His Majesty the King's Guard. 



“We have informed the media that a named civilian has been killed in Somalia. We are also aware that he - like many others - has completed their military services training in the Armed Forces a few years back,” said Lt. Col. Bent-Ivan Myhre, spokesman of the Armed Forces.

Transformation

VG Nett has been in contact with family members and acquaintances of the Norwegian-Somali shoulder. They tell of a sudden change that began after he came in contact with the so-called Tablighi community while traveling. They are extremely conservative Muslims.

“He was a real GodGunsAndGlory. He played football, was well liked by everyone. He had many Norwegian friends, said a school friend.”

Family shocked

The father of the late Norwegian-Somali replied to VG that it came as a shock to him and others in the family that his son traveled to Somalia to join al-Shabaab.

“He traveled to Ethiopia last year to visit his mother. From there he went to Somalia, but he told me little about it. It is terrible to think that he is dead, I cannot get it out of my head, said the father. He has five children behind in Norway.”

-Was he contacted by PST after he died?

“Yes, I have talked a lot with the police. What we talked about is a matter between me and them, but you can imagine it yourself.”

- I guess they were interested in knowing why your son chose to join a terrorist organization.

The father nodded, pulled another drag on his cigarette and his eye went blank.

Overgrown beard

In 2009 that the young man suddenly changed. He began to walk in long ankle-length robes and let his beard grow.

Then, the young man went to Africa. He had not been to Africa since he first set foot on Norwegian soil in 1994.

He landed in Ethiopia and stayed there for a while. Then he must have crossed the border into Somalia. From the war-torn country, he called home from terrorist-controlled Beled weyne.

In Somalia, he was responsible for training and passing on the knowledge of His Majesty the King's Guard to young terrorist recruits.



The family did not hear from him, again. Not until an unknown woman called in March 2011. 



“Hey, I'm his wife. He has been killed,” was all she had to say.




Now the family wants to know who fooled the young happy boy into believing he would go to paradise if he martyred his life to the Somali bloodshed. 



“Why? I want to know,” say a family member. He explains that the young man was a role model for his brothers, sisters, nephews and cousins, before suddenly enlisting into to the radical Islamist movement.

Who could have fooled the young happy boy into believing such a thing? Could it have been...Allah, who guarantees Paradise to those who "kill and are killed" for him (Qur'an 9:111)?

Warning 

Somalia expert, Stig Jarle Hansen, wrote the report in which the unique story unfolds. He warns it isn’t only young misfits and frustrated men who are attracted to participate in the terror war. 

“This shows that it is important to have a deep and broad dialogue with the Somali community.

It is important not to be blinded by the danger of lies. This man was apparently well-integrated, played football and had Norwegian friends,” says Hansen.

See? Muslims are the new Jews, and those who resist jihad are just like Nazis. You remember all those Jewish grenade attacks on German churches in the 1930s, don't you?

The attempt to portray Muslims as innocent victims of bigotry and hatred depends upon popular ignorance of the extent of Islamic jihad activity. That's why this site exists: to help remedy that ignorance. And that's why this site drives those who aid and abet the global jihad and Islamic supremacism -- especially those who do so by billowing out fogs of disinformation and misinformation about "Islamophobia" and the evil Nazis persecuting poor innocent Muslims -- absolutely up the wall. (Good morning, Ibe!)

"2 Die in Grenade Attack at Kenya Church," from the Associated Press, November 6 (thanks to Bill):

WAJIR, Kenya (AP) — Two people were killed in a suspected al-Shabab attack at a church in an eastern Kenyan town, a police official said Sunday.

Kenyan police chief Leo Nyongesa said that a woman and her two grandchildren were also injured when attackers hurled a grenade at the Pentecostal Church in Garissa late Saturday.

Ibrahim Makunyi, the head pastor at the church, said the house near the entrance of the church that belonged to a church elder had been bombed.

"One of the dead is a member of the choir, and the other is the son of the church elder," he said.

Witness Mary Nginya said that after the explosion she heard attackers say "It is just the beginning," in Swahili....

Oh, I am sure that is true. Not that the world will note that fact with any solicitude for the victims or measures directed toward preventing future jihad attacks.

Back in March, the U.S. attorney's office reached out to St. Louis Muslims, playing right into the hands of the victimhood mentality and sense of grievance that Hamas-linked CAIR and other groups so carefully cultivate among Muslims in the U.S., so as to wring concessions from government and law enforcement, and take the focus off jihad terror and Islamic supremacism.

Here is how well it is working out for them in St. Louis -- but fear not, U.S. Attorney Richard Callahan is doggedly pressing forward with his outreach activities. Hey, they've never worked so far, but what does that prove?

"Somali cabdriver pleads guilty to funneling money to terrorists back home," by Jennifer Mann for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 4 (thanks to James):

ST. LOUIS • A Somali refugee who worked as an airport taxicab driver here was secretly plotting with leaders of an insurgent group back home to fund the terrorist organization, according to documents made public during his guilty plea Thursday.

Mohamud Abdi Yusuf, 31, acknowledged through his plea that throughout 2008 and 2009, he raised nearly $6,000 for al-Shabaab, an organization trying to topple the provisional government in war-torn Somalia.

The U.S. government named al-Shabaab a terrorist organization in 2008.

In a public statement, Dennis Baker, special agent in charge of the FBI in St. Louis, underlined the importance of the conviction, saying at least 20 American citizens have traveled to Somalia to join al-Shabaab, which has top leaders affiliated with al-Qaida.

The money at issue went toward a vehicle al-Shabaab used for tactical operations and to hide and deliver weapons, Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Drake said in federal court here.

In plotting the money transfers, Yusuf used aliases and held coded conversations with Sheikh Saaid, a mid-level group platoon leader, according to the plea agreement. They used references to al-Shabaab including: "the youth," "the skull-breakers," "the teeth grinders," "the general cause" and "males who wear short pants."

The plea agreement says Yusuf spoke regularly with an unnamed co-conspirator in San Diego who, according to wiretapped conversations, was passing on direct orders from Aden Hashi Ayrow, the principal military leader and commander of al-Shabaab. Ayrow, who declared a "holy war" against Ethiopian and other African Union supporters in Somalia, died in a missile strike in 2008.

The man in San Diego appears to have been the hub for funneling money from the U.S. to the group, according to court documents.

The documents say Yusuf used various aliases and that his link to the group was a man named Duane Mohamed Diriye, whom he met at a Somalian refugee camp before immigrating to the U.S. He told Yusuf the fighters would "jump out of the vehicle, kill their targets, get back in and flee."...

Yusuf's arrest on Nov. 1 stirred anger in the city's Somali community, and had some accusing authorities of strong-arm tactics. A Post-Dispatch report outlined how that same day FBI agents singled out several dozen Somali cab drivers at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport for questioning, seeking to copy their cell phone memory cards and to examine their personal computers.

U.S. Attorney Richard Callahan declined to comment on the investigative tactics at the time. In what he said was an unrelated move, he appointed an assistant U.S. attorney as an outreach coordinator to the area's growing Islamic community.

Yusuf's defense attorney, Douglas Forsyth, has challenged investigators' use of secret surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. His motion to protest it, not uncommon for cases of this type, was rendered moot by Yusuf's guilty plea Thursday. In court, Yusuf spoke only to answer questions from U.S. District Judge Henry Autrey.

When entering his guilty plea for each of four of felony counts - one for conspiracy, and three for providing material support to a designated terrorist organization - he responded four times, "I did it."...

That's pretty much the plan anyway, isn't it? Until worship is for Allah alone (Qur'an 2:193, 8:39)? An update on this story. "Somali rebels say will subject Kenya to 'endless war'," from Agence France-Presse, November 4:

Somalia's Shebab rebels said Thursday they were building defences that would plunge Kenyan forces battling them into an "endless war."

As Kenyan forces prepared to assault rebel position after moving into Shebab-controlled southern Somalia last month, army spokesman Major Emmanuel Chirchir warned militants were moving weapons by air and donkeys.

Let it be known henceforth as Ass Jihad.

"The Shebab mujahideen will defend Somalia, and will put Kenya into an endless war," the Al-Qaeda-linked rebels said in statement.

And by our asses, we will be victorious -- no, don't say that on the radio, Sheikh Rage.

"We will defeat you like the other major countries that have suffered when they attacked Somalia, you will see the consequences."

Since Somalia spiralled into civil war in 1991, several foreign armies -- including US forces, UN peacekeepers and a 2006 Ethiopian invasion -- have failed to create stability in the anarchic nation.

Chirchir said that the rebels, who he claimed had received three planeloads of arms this week, were now transporting the weapons on donkeys.

"Information reaching us confirms that Al Shebab has resorted to using donkeys to transport their weapons," Chirchir said in a statement.

"Thus, any large concentration and movement of loaded donkeys will be considered as Al Shebab activity."

Kenya has warned residents in 10 southern Somali towns to leave Shebab-held areas ahead of an imminent attack, and on Wednesday sunk a small boat off the southern Somali coast carrying 18 men it said were Shebab fighters.

"The Kenya Navy intercepted the skiff and sunk it killing all the militants," Chirchir added.

The militants however dismissed the reported air deliveries as an excuse by Kenya to legitimise civilian deaths ahead of the expected assault.

"This is cheap propaganda to legalise the indiscriminate killing of Somalis," the Shebab statement added, posted in Somali on an Islamist website.

Kenya has said it will probe reports of civilian deaths when its warplanes struck the rebel-held town of Jilib at the weekend, where aid agency Doctors Without Borders said five civilians were killed.

The jihadists who could care less about inflicting civilian casualties suddenly decide they have a problem with civilian casualties, at least some of the time:

Rebels however said they feared that there could be more civilian deaths when Kenya ramps up its military attacks on its positions.

Claiming victim status:

"This is a plan to carry out collective punishment against the Muslim people of Somalia... the killing of civilians at Jilib by Kenya is clear testimony of this," the Shebab statement added.

Suspicion has fallen on Eritrea. It would not be the first time Eritrea has been accused of supporting the Somali jihadists, even provoking U.N. sanctions. "Kenya claims Somali rebels receive third weapons airdrop," from Agence France-Presse, November 2:

Kenya said Wednesday that Somali Islamist rebels had received a third planeload of armaments, as its forces prepare to push forward against the Al-Qaeda-linked militants in the war-torn nation.

Kenyan soldiers and tanks pushed into Shebab-controlled southern Somalia some two weeks ago to fight the insurgents and curtail their ability to launch cross-border attacks.

"We've had a positive confirmation that there was another landing of another aircraft with weapons," army spokesman Emmanuel Chirchir said. The reports could not be independently verified.

Two aircraft landed Tuesday delivering ammunition and weapons to the extremist Shebab, Chirchir said, adding he would not comment on where the weapons were coming from.

"We are concentrating on how to disarm the enemy," he said.

Eritrea has been accused of supplying arms by air and sea to the Shebab rebels, but Asmara has repeatedly denied all claims.

"These claims are pure fabrications ... Eritrea has not sent any arms to Somalia," the Eritrean foreign ministry said in a statement Wednesday.

"Eritrea's sole interest in Somalia is to see peace and stability return."

Perhaps seeking human shields, and the propaganda potential of elevated civilian casualties, the cowards of al-Shabaab have made themselves the arbiters of other people's "martyrdom." "Somalis brace for Kenyan air assault," by Abdi Sheikh and Sahra Abdi for the Associated Press, November 2:

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somalia braced for Kenyan air attacks on Wednesday and Islamist militants stopped civilians from fleeing at least one likely strike zone.

Kenya, which sent troops into lawless Somalia nearly three weeks ago to crush the al Shabaab militant network, said on Tuesday it planned "imminent" air raids on militant bases and warned residents to stay clear of them.

Kenya's warning of air bombardments was prompted by reports the al Qaeda-linked militants had received two consignments of weapons, flown into the rebel-controlled town of Baidoa.

Eritrea dismissed media reports it had delivered the arms cache as "outright lies" meant to dirty its reputation.

Some 24 hours after Kenya gave its warning, there were no raids reported in the ten rebel strongholds where it had advised civilians to stay clear of insurgent bases.

"(Al Shabaab) ordered us to stay and die at the hands of Christian Kenya, to dwell in paradise," Abdikadir Weydow, a resident of the southern town of Afmadow, told Reuters.

Afmadow, a rebel bastion and strategic transit point for contraband smuggled through rebel-controlled Kismayu port, is seen as a likely flashpoint for a confrontation between Kenyan forces and al Shabaab militants.

Kenyan and Somali government troops, as well as militia nominally allied to Somalia's government, have set up forward positions close to Afmadow.

In many other towns, including Baardheere, Baidoa and Afgoye, many people were preparing to escape, hoping to lie low in the bush or reach the Kenyan frontier.

It speaks volumes about the situation that Somalis are fleeing toward the country dropping the bombs.

"We are determined to flee to the jungle. We cannot stay in a town which is to be bombed," said Baardheere resident Yusuf Guled.

Others, too poor to afford the transport or encumbered by elderly relatives, were hunkering down in anticipation of an aerial assault.

Kenya's army spokesman Emmanuel Chirchir told Reuters on Tuesday its forces would not target civilians, but warned they needed to stay away from rebel bases to avoid being caught up in the fighting....

A far cry from al-Shabaab, which freely targets civilians.

He "reportedly grew up in Minneapolis and was known by the FBI as one of 20 Somali Americans to have joined an al-Qaida-linked militant group." An update on this story. "Suicide bomber in Somali attack was reportedly from Minneapolis," from MSNBC, October 31:

MOGADISHU, Somalia — A man who blew himself up in an attack in the Somali capital on Saturday reportedly grew up in Minneapolis and was known by the FBI as one of 20 Somali Americans to have joined an al-Qaida-linked militant group.

Abdisalan Hussein Ali, 22, was suspected of being a member of al-Shabab, the FBI told msnbc.com.

Kyle Loven, the FBI's chief division counsel for Minneapolis, said Ali was a subject of "Operation Rhino," an ongoing investigation into Somali youth traveling from the U.S. to Somalia to fight for al-Shabab.

Loven could not confirm whether Ali was indeed the bomber but told msnbc.com that the FBI was "awaiting results from DNA checks at this point."

Al-Shabab posted an audiotape that they said was made by Ali before he blew himself up during an attack Saturday on an African Union base in Mogadishu that left at least 10 people dead.

The FBI could not confirm whether the audiotape was authentic but was investigating its credibility.

A spokesman for the Somali affairs unit at the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi told msnbc.com that they had seen reports alleging that one of the bombers was an American citizen."We have not been able to verify those reports," Matt Goshko said.

In the tape, the young man, who would be at least the fourth American to become a suicide bomber in Somalia, urges other young people to not "just chill all day" and instead fight nonbelievers around the world.

The website Somalimemo.net (website not in English), often used by the al-Shabab militia, said the Somali-American bomber had emigrated to the U.S. when he was two years old.

'Bullethead'

There were conflicting reports of his name, with some sources naming the bomber as Abdisalan Taqabalahullaah and Cabdi Salaam al-Muhajir.

But a Somali diplomat at the United Nations said the youth's friends and family listened to the recording and identified him as Abdisalan Hussein Ali, The New York Times reported.

"They all say it is him," Omar Jamal, the diplomat, told The Times.

According to The Minneapolis Star Tribune, he graduated from Edison High School and attended the University of Minnesota, where he was a pre-med student, The Times reported. He disappeared in 2008.

The Star Tribune reported that Ali's nickname was "Bullethead," and that during high school he liked to lift weights and that he sold shoes to help support his family.

The young man in the tape had an American accent and mixed Muslim terminology with American slang as he urged Muslims to carry out attacks against non-Muslims around the world.

"My brothers and sisters, do jihad in America, do jihad in Canada, do jihad in England, anywhere in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, in China, in Australia," the voice on the al-Shabab tape said. "Anywhere you find (unbelievers), fight them and be firm against them.

Qur'an 9:123: "O ye who believe! Fight those of the disbelievers who are near to you, and let them find harshness in you, and know that Allah is with those who keep their duty (unto Him)."

Also, once again, jihad causes poverty:

"Today jihad is what is most important thing for the Muslim ummah," he said, using a word for the Islamic community. "It is not important that you, you know, you you become a doctor or you become, you know, uh, some sort of engineer."

"We have to believe in Allah and die as Muslims ... Brainstorm," the youth said. "Don't, don't just sit around and, you know, be, be be a couch potato and you know, you know, just like, you know, just chill all day, you know. It doesn't, it doesn't, it will not benefit you, it will not benefit yourself, or the Muslims."

Abdisalan Taqabalahullaah shows his gratitude for the country that took him in, gave him a home, and kept him safe while jihad warfare wracked his homeland. "Somali militants post tape of 'US suicide bomber,'" by Abdi Guled and Katharine Houreld AP, October 30 (thanks to Kenneth):

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) - An al-Qaida-linked Somali militant group on Sunday posted a tape allegedly made by an American citizen who blew himself up during an attack on an African Union base in Somalia's capital that left at least 10 people dead.

The young man, who would be at least the fourth American to become a suicide bomber in Somalia, urges other young people not to "just chill all day" and instead fight nonbelievers around the world.

The website Somalimemo.net, often used by the al-Shabab militia, said Somali-American bomber Abdisalan Taqabalahullaah had emigrated to the U.S. when he was 2 years old.

It was not possible to verify the claims and the U.S. Embassy was not able to comment. U.S. authorities estimate that at least 20 American passport holders have joined the insurgents in Somalia. At least three of them became suicide bombers.

The young man had an American accent and mixed Muslim terminology with American slang as he urged Muslims to carry out attacks against non-Muslims around the world.

"My brothers and sisters, do jihad in America, do jihad in Canada, do jihad in England, anywhere in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, in China, in Australia," the voice said. "Anywhere you find (unbelievers), fight them and be firm against them.

"Today jihad is what is most important thing for the Muslim ummah," he said, using a word for the Islamic community. "It is not important that you, you know, you you become a doctor or you become, you know, uh, some sort of engineer."

"We have to believe in Allah and die as Muslims ... Brainstorm," the youth said. "Don't, don't just sit around and, you know, be, be be a couch potato and you know, you know, just like, you know, just chill all day, you know. It doesn't, it doesn't, it will not benefit you, it will not benefit yourself, or the Muslims."...

This clown lived in America from the age of two. We are always told that Muslims in America are peaceful and reject violent jihad and the beliefs of Al-Qaeda and its allies. So how did Abdisalan Taqabalahullaah end up misunderstanding Islam so drastically? Did he attend a mosque in the U.S.? If so, which one? What is being taught there? Does anyone know? Does anyone care?

Covering their bases: in the midst of their saber-rattling about spectacular attacks inside Kenya, they are also trying to make arrangements for a hudna. "Official: Al-Shabaab leaders contact Kenyan government to negotiate," by David McKenzie for CNN, October 27:

Nairobi, Kenya (CNN) -- Conflicting accounts emerged Thursday over whether the extremist group Al-Shabaab has signaled a desire to negotiate with Kenya amid a Kenyan military offensive targeting the group.

"They want to talk," said a Kenyan official who did not want to be named because he is not authorized to talk to the media.

A spokesman for the Kenyan government, however, disputed that account and said Kenya wouldn't talk with Al-Shabaab even if the group did want to negotiate.

"Al-Shabaab has not contacted Kenya in any way," said the spokesman, Alfred Mutua. "There are no plans whatsoever for Kenya to negotiate with Al-Shabaab. Kenya does not negotiate with outlawed groups."

He said Kenyan troops have enjoyed success since crossing the border into Somalia to pursue Al-Shabaab, which the United States and several Western nations view as a terrorist organization.

"They are running scared. I think they are busy running for their lives," Mutua said. "They don't have time to talk."

Kenyan troops struck several Al-Shabaab training sites in Somalia early Thursday, a military spokesman said. The militant group, which includes many rival factions with different leaders, operates from Somalia.

The group's leaders were said to be reaching out for possible negotiations two weeks after Kenyan troops stormed into Somalia to hunt for Al-Shabaab, which Kenya blames for recent kidnappings of foreigners in the nation.

But Sheikh Mukhtar Robow Ali, Al-Shabaab's second-in-command who is also known as Abu Mansur, told supporters protesting in Mogadishu against the Kenyan incursion that if Kenya struck targets in Somalia, the militant group would strike back.

Kenya has said its forces aim to take the Somali port city of Kismayo, described by the United Nations as a key stronghold and source of cash for Al-Shabaab. The United Nations estimates the group collects up to $50 million a year from businesses in Kismayo, about half of its annual income.

Robow urged what he said were Al-Shabaab-trained fighters in Kenya to take action in return, with the Kenyan port of Mombasa a target.

''Carry out attacks with heavy losses on Kenya," Robow said. "If Kenya closes the sea port in Kismayo, attack its banks, its port, its foreign guests and wherever there is a high-value target."...

"Stop throwing grenades at buses," they said. "We need a huge blow against Kenya."

Everyone's a critic. More on this story. "Somalia's al Shabaab vows huge blast in Kenya," by Ismail Taxta and Abdi Sheikh for Reuters, October 27:

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somalia's al Shabaab rebels called Thursday for supporters in Kenya to carry out a major strike in retaliation for a 12-day military incursion by east Africa's powerhouse.

Kenya has sent soldiers and heavy weapons into southern Somalia to crush the al Qaeda-linked militants Nairobi blames for a string of kidnappings on Kenyan soil and frequent border incursions.

Kenyan units have advanced on several fronts with Somali government troops and allied militias toward al Shabaab strongholds and a fighter jet bombed its port city of Kismayu on Sunday.

"The time to ask Kenya to stop war has passed. The only option is to fight them. Kenya, you have started the war and so you have to face the consequences," Sheikh Muktar Robow Abu Mansoor, a top al Shabaab official, told a demonstration.

An al Shabaab spokesman, Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, told Reuters his fighters had struck four Kenyan military vehicles near a town called Tabdo inside Somalia Thursday.

General Yusuf Hussein Dhumaal, the head of Somali troops in the area, denied there had been any ambush or fighting. Kenyan government spokesman Alfred Mutua declined to comment.

The al Shabaab official urged sympathizers in Kenya to shun the grenade attacks that hit the capital Nairobi Monday, killing one person and wounding 29. Police said Thursday that all but six of the victims had now returned home.

"The Kenyan Mujahideen who were trained by Osama in Afghanistan, stop throwing grenades at buses. We need a huge blow against Kenya. Hand grenades hurled can harm them but we want huge blasts," he told hundreds of people gathered in Elasha, near Mogadishu.

Jihad causes poverty:

Residents said al Shabaab had ordered them Wednesday to close businesses and attend the anti-Kenyan rallies.

The two grenade attacks on a bar and a bus terminus in downtown Nairobi have spooked Kenyans and security has been beefed up in the capital at hotels, government buildings, restaurants, bars and shopping malls.

All of these measures are costly, and a drain on resources. Even if al-Shabaab does not get a truck bomb into position, it has had an impact.

The blasts came two days after the U.S. embassy warned of an imminent attack. A Kenyan man has pleaded guilty to one of the attacks and being a member of al Shabaab.

Kenya's Police Commissioner Mathew Iteere said two more people had been arrested over the attacks and were due to appear in court this week. He said the man who pleaded guilty went to Somalia in February and returned to Kenya in August.

The United Nations has warned that hundreds of Kenyan Muslims have been recruited by al Shabaab and that youth organizations have raised funds for the Somali militants.

A U.N. Monitoring Group report on Somalia published in July said al Shabaab had extensive funding, recruiting and training networks within Kenya.

Al Shabaab has yet to carry out a major strike in Kenya but has used suicide bombers to devastating effect in Somalia and Uganda -- whose troops are fighting the rebels in Mogadishu as part of an African Union force.

Twin suicide blasts in Kampala killed 79 people watching the soccer World Cup final last year and a truck bomb in Mogadishu killed more than 70 people earlier this month.

Unknown gunmen also attacked a vehicle in northeastern Kenya Thursday killing at least four government employees, local officials told Reuters. Media reports said they were targeted with rocket-propelled grenades and gunfire.

Iteere said the vehicle transporting papers for school exams was attacked about 110 km (70 miles) from the northeastern town of Mandera, which is on the border with Ethiopia and Somalia.

Al-Shabaab may also decide Dar-es-Salaam is Dar al-Harb:

Kenya's southern neighbor Tanzania also issued a terrorism alert late Wednesday following the Nairobi attacks....

Officially, al-Shabaab calls the famine declaration a conspiracy. It may have occurred to al-Qaeda that the Somali jihadists' willingness to starve the country into submission might be bad for business, or there may have been private appeals from al-Shabaab.

In any event, what is of additional interest to U.S. officials in this case is the identity of the al-Qaeda emissary in a recent video, who speaks nearly perfect English. It is all too likely we will see or hear from him again, and increased cooperation between al-Qaeda and al-Shabaab poses its own set of problems inside the region and beyond. "Who is “the Foreigner,” al-Qaida’s new aid emissary to Somalia?," by Laura Rozen for The Envoy, October 25:

Despite recent high-profile successes in U.S. efforts to remove key al-Qaida leaders from the battlefield, American counter-terrorism officials are increasingly concerned about al-Qaida affiliates finding fertile ground in unstable, weakly-governed parts of Africa. So terrorism analysts are paying particular attention to a fluent English-speaking al-Qaida emissary who appeared on a video in famine-ravaged Somalia last week, NPR's Dina Temple-Ralston reports.

On a video distributed to Islamist websites last week, the light-skinned man described himself as an emissary of bin Laden's successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri. As NPR correspondent Temple Ralston reports Tuesday, the man's Islamic name translates to "the Foreigner," and in his slightly north African accented English, he said he had been sent to Somalia by Zawahiri to distribute aid to southern Somalia's starving population, much of it under the control of the al-Qaida-linked Somali militant group al-Shabab:

So imagine the reaction when a little over a week ago an unusual video appeared on Islamic websites. It was of a white man with a scarf twisted over his face standing before bags of grain and piles of clothes in a desert in Somalia. In the video, he was addressing the hungry at a local feeding station. He said his name was Abu Abdulla al-Muhajir, or "the foreigner." And there was one thing US officials noticed about the man almost immediately: He was speaking nearly perfect English.[...]

His English wasn't quite unaccented and his word choice wasn't quite right — but it was close. The young man went on to tell the crowd that al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri had sent him to Somalia to distribute food and clothing. "Al-Qaida, under the leadership of Sheikh Ayman al-Zawahiri, continues to highlight the plight of the (community) and continues to support them with every means at their disposal," he said.

"Counter-terrorism officials say the release of this tape could mean al-Qaida is forging closer ties" with Somalia's al-Shabab, Temple-Ralston reports.

And indeed, the release of the tape comes as al-Shabab is accused of stepping up a campaign of kidnappings that target foreign tourists and aid workers providing famine relief in neighboring Kenya.

Several such kidnapping incidents have recently threatened Kenya's critical tourism industry, and have also hampered international famine relief efforts in the Horn of Africa. [...]

However, the president of Somalia's weak transitional government on Monday dismayed western allies when he urged Kenya to halt its military incursion in southern Somalia, the Associated Press reported. Somalia's transitional regime ostensibly works with a 9,000-member African Union peacekeeping force to fight al-Shabab to maintain minimal control of the capital of the civil war-stricken country.

"American and European officials on Tuesday joined some Somali residents in expressing dismay over comments from Somalia's president that called on foreign military allies to stop twin advances against Islamic insurgents," the AP's Katharine Houreld reported from Nairobi Tuesday. Somalia President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed "on Monday publicly told Kenya to halt its military advance in southern Somalia. Diplomats say he also privately asked African Union troops not to move beyond the Deynile neighborhood of Mogadishu, where they are fighting al-Shabab militants for control."

So who is Zawahiri's English speaking aid emissary to Somalia, "the Foreigner?" U.S. military and intelligence officials are intently trying to find out.

"If you ask me what keeps me up at night, it is the thought of an American passport-holding person who transits to a training camp in Somalia, gets some skill, and finds their way back to the United States to attack Americans," U.S. Africom commander Gen. Carter Ham told the Center for Strategic and International Studies earlier this month, Temple-Ralston reported.

The good news is that Kenya apprehended this bomber. The bad news is that this pair of somewhat amateurish, opportunistic free-lance jihadist attacks is almost certain not to be al-Shabaab's main event in Kenya. Al-Shabaab has actually denied any connection to these attacks, which fall outside of its recent tendencies toward suicide attacks, and the group has specifically threatened Kenya with suicide bombings.

An update on this story. "Kenyan pleads guilty to grenade attack, being Shebab," from Agence France-Presse, October 26:

A Kenyan man plead guilty Wednesday to involvement in a grenade attack in Nairobi and being a member of the Al-Qaeda linked Somali Shebab militant group. Police arrested Elgiva Bwire Oliacha Tuesday in a Nairobi district and seized a cache of weapons including several grenades, ammunition and guns, after two grenade attacks shocked Kenya's capital.

On Monday, one person was killed in a grenade attack at a Nairobi bus stop hours after several others were wounded when a grenade was detonated in a bar.

Bwire, aged 28 and from western Kenya, admitted guilt in court only to involvement in Monday night's grenade attack at a bus station, as well as to possession of unlicensed weapons.

His case is due to be heard again on Friday, and he could face up to 15 years in prison.

Despite Bwire's guilty plea, Shebab leaders continue to deny responsibility for the attacks, which wounded more than two dozen people.

Kenyan police have in the past been accused of using "violence and torture during interrogations," according to US State Department reports.

Police have come under intense pressure to step up security following threats of retaliation by Shebab insurgents after Kenya's military launched an assault against the rebels in the south of war-torn Somalia....

This attack on a bus stop, and a grenade thrown into a nightclub, follow threats from al-Shabaab in response to a Kenyan military operation (rumored to have Western support) in southern Somalia, which was launched after cross-border kidnappings on Kenyan territory.

The U.S. embassy in Nairobi warned Saturday of an "imminent" threat of attacks on Nairobi, but neither of these are al-Shabaab's main event. The group has increasingly turned to suicide bombings in recent weeks, and these smaller attacks only leave Kenyans to wonder when or if the other shoe is going to drop as the Somali jihadists seek to become "victorious with terror" (Sahih Bukhari 4.52.220).

"Kenya: Second explosion in Nairobi," from BBC News, October 24:

A blast has gone off at a bus stop in Kenya's capital, Nairobi, killing at least one person, police say.

An earlier grenade attack on a bar in the city wounded 12 people.

The attacks happened two days after the US embassy in Kenya warned that an attack by Islamist militants from neighbouring Somalia was imminent.

But Kenyan Police Commissioner Matthew Iteere said there was no evidence linking the nightclub attack to the militants from the al-Shabab group.

The Kenyan government sent troops to Somalia more than a week ago to pursue the militants after accusing them of being behind a spate of abductions on its territory.

Al-Shabab, which is linked to al-Qaeda and controls much of southern and central Somalia, denies involvement in the kidnappings but has warned of reprisals if Kenyan troops do not withdraw from Somalia.

There is also the possibility that these acts are copycat attacks, possibly by sympathizers within Kenya who want in on the action.

Police said the explosion on Monday evening occurred at the OTC bus terminal in downtown Nairobi, which is usually a busy part of the city.

Kenya's Red Cross said on its Twitter feed that eight casualties had been rushed to Kenyatta National Hospital.

In the early hours of Monday morning a man threw a grenade into the Mwauras nightclub and fled the scene, witnesses said. No-one has claimed responsibility for the attack.

The BBC's Will Ross in Nairobi says last December three people died during a grenade attack at a bus in Nairobi. It was never clear who was behind it.

Our correspondent adds that although both attacks were small, they will nevertheless cause a great deal of anxiety in Kenya.

The Kenyan military is reported to be advancing toward Kismayo, accompanied by aerial bombardment of the city. With or without international assistance to the Kenyan military, al-Shabaab seems at last to have bitten off more than it can chew with its recent cross-border kidnappings.

"Kenya Says Western Nations Join Fight in Somalia, as U.S. Denies Role," by Josh Kron and Jeffrey Gettleman for the New York Times, October 23:

NAIROBI, Kenya — Foreign military forces have joined the offensive against the Shabab militant group in Somalia as Kenyan troops advanced toward the rebel stronghold of Kismayu from two different directions, Kenya said Sunday.

A Kenyan military spokesman, Maj. Emmanuel Chirchir, said that “one of the partners,” possibly the United States or France, had been behind airstrikes in the past few days, killing a number of Shabab militants. The French Navy has also shelled rebel positions from the sea, the Kenyan military said in a statement.

There is also a psychological element to this announcement, of course. Al-Shabaab may have surmised by now that it is in much more trouble than usual. A report like this leaves the group to wonder how much.

Two senior American officials in Washington said Sunday that neither the United States military nor the Central Intelligence Agency had carried out airstrikes in Somalia in recent days. One of the officials, who follows American military operations closely, said the Kenyan offensive had forced many Shabab fighters and commanders to disperse, making them easier potential targets, but emphasized that there had been “no U.S. military strikes in Somalia at all recently.”

American officials in Kenya declined to comment. A French diplomat in the United States did not return phone calls.

If Western military powers have indeed joined the conflict, analysts said, it could represent a turning point against the Shabab, a ruthless militant group that has pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda. The group controls much of southern Somalia, though its young fighters and battered pickup trucks are deemed no match for a sophisticated army.

“Everybody is in theater,” Major Chirchir said in a telephone interview on Sunday. “We know about the strikes. They are complementary.”

The American military has previously conducted surgical strikes in Somalia, taking the opportunity to kill terrorism suspects and Shabab fighters who were on the run. In 2006 and 2007, the American military cooperated closely with a large Ethiopian force that stormed into Somalia to oust an Islamist movement that had taken control of much of the country.

About a week ago, Kenya sent hundreds of its soldiers into Somalia to battle the Shabab, whom the Kenyans blame for recent kidnappings in Kenya; many independent analysts, however, doubt the group had a role in the abductions. Kenya’s military says it plans to remain in Somalia until the Shabab’s capacity is “reduced” and Somalia’s weak, American-backed transitional government is able to function.

But Kenya’s military — especially compared with those of its neighbors, like Ethiopia, Uganda, Sudan and Somalia — has scant experience. Several military efforts over the past 20 years by other external powers, from the United States to the United Nations, have failed to deliver a sustainable government in Somalia.

Kenyan military officials say their plan is to squeeze the port of Kismayu, one of Somalia’s biggest towns and a major money-earner for the Shabab, from two sides in a pincer movement with troops massing to the west near Afmadow and to the south in Raas Kaambooni. Heavy rains, though, have literally bogged them down, and after an initial burst of activity, the Kenyan advance seems to have slowed.

Major Chirchir said the Kenyan Navy had also positioned ships along the coastline from the Kenyan border toward Kismayu.

“Any vessel that is there with a militia we will take it down,” he warned.

On Sunday, Kenyan officials said that a French naval ship had shelled the city of Koday, south of Kismayu, and that casualty figures were not yet available. The French military has also launched small, covert strikes in Somalia in the past, aimed at terrorism suspects and pirates.[...]

On Saturday, the American Embassy sent a text message to Americans in Kenya saying, “ the U.S. Embassy in Kenya has received credible information of an imminent threat of terrorist attacks directed at prominent Kenyan facilities and areas where foreigners are known to congregate, such as malls and nightclubs. Please exercise caution.” [...]

Early Monday, a grenade attack wounded 14 people in a bar in central Nairobi, the Kenyan police said, according to Reuters. No one was killed in the blast and no one claimed responsibility.

The jihadists from Somalia's Al-Shabaab have threatened Kenya: "your skyscrapers will be destroyed, your tourism will disappear." In other words, they are threatening to turn the place into Somalia. "U.S. embassy warns of imminent threat in Kenya," by Yara Bayoumy for Reuters, October 22:

NAIROBI (Reuters) - The U.S. embassy in Kenya warned of a threat to American citizens in the country after Nairobi launched a cross-border operation against Islamist militants in Somalia.

The embassy in a note to U.S. citizens living in or visiting Kenya said on Saturday that reprisal attacks could be directed at "prominent Kenyan facilities and areas where foreigners are known to congregate, such as malls and night clubs."

The statement said the embassy had taken measures to limit official U.S. government travel to Kenya.

Kenya launched its boldest incursion yet into its anarchic neighbor six days ago after a wave of kidnappings against foreigners that Nairobi has blamed on the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab militants.

The rebels have denied responsibility for the kidnappings and said Nairobi was using them as a pretext for an attack.

The rebels have warned Nairobi to withdraw from its southern strongholds or risk bringing the "flames of war" into Kenya.

Al-Shabaab finds a way to be even more evil than before: "The hostage-takers are even trying to sell the remains." "'Barbarians' demand ransom for Frenchwoman's body," from Agence France-Presse, October 20:

France on Thursday denounced as "barbarians" Somali kidnappers who were demanding a ransom for the body of a disabled Frenchwoman who died while in their captivity.

France said Wednesday that 66-year-old Marie Dedieu, who was kidnapped on October 1 and taken to Somalia, had died in the hands of her captors, most probably because they had refused to provide her medication.

Dedieu had been in a wheelchair and was suffering from cancer.

"The hostage-takers are even trying to sell the remains, it could not be more despicable," French Defence Minister Gerard Longuet told the i-TELE news network.

"Seizing a woman of this age, who is sick and paralysed, and not giving her her medication, allowing her to develop septicaemia from which she apparently died, and then proposing to sell her remains! These are not people who deserve anything but contempt," Longuet said.

"Those who committed this unspeakable act are nothing but a gang of barbarians," President Nicolas Sarkozy told AFP during a visit to a waste treatment centre in western France.

"This 66-year-old woman, gravely ill, who had cancer, who was quadriplegic, was kidnapped and not given the medication that she needed," he said.

"Barbarians who act this way, I don't think we can show much weakness towards them."

Longuet said the French military was not planning any action against the kidnappers in Somalia because they were "a small band, a small minority, an exception who dishonour this territory."

A gang of armed men seized Dedieu from Manda Island in Kenya's Lamu archipelago earlier this month and fled by sea to Somalia, fighting off an attempt by Kenya's navy to stop them.

France has demanded the immediate and unconditional return of her remains.

Kenya has blamed Islamist Shebab rebels in Somalia for a spate of recent kidnappings of foreigners and this week launched an unprecedented incursion into Somalia against the militants.

What, oh what, might have moved these ordinary Minnesotans to turn to terror?

Did Ali stand for the judge when the verdict was read, or continue to show proper Islamic contempt for his jahili authority? The AP article doesn't say. "2 Minnesota Women Convicted of Funneling Money to Terror Group in Somalia," from Associated Press, October 20 (thanks to Colin):

MINNEAPOLIS -- A jury has convicted two Minnesota women accused of funneling money to a terrorist group in Somalia.

Jurors returned their verdicts in federal court in Minneapolis Thursday.

Amina Farah Ali and Hawo Mohamed Hassan were charged with conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. Ali also faced 12 counts of providing such support, while Hassan faced two counts of lying to the FBI.

They have been found guilty on all counts.

Prosecutors say the women were part of a "deadly pipeline" that routed money and fighters from the U.S. to Somalia. Their attorneys say they were helping refugees....

It sufficed for authorities that the radio show host cautioned the imam that they were in Sweden, though the imam said he didn't care; that didn't matter. Authorities do appear to have approached the issue with kid gloves, as one can't help but wonder how light a touch they would have used had this exchange involved a religion other than Islam. Here, a spokesman explained, "The statement was based on personal faith and the ceiling is pretty high when it comes to that kind of statement."

An update on this story. "Imam's on-air death threat 'not hate speech'," from The Local, October 20 (thanks to Twostellas):

It was not hate speech when Swedish public service broadcaster Sveriges Radio (SR) featured a programme in which a Somali imam called for all converts from Islam to be killed, the Swedish Chancellor of Justice (Justitiekanslern, JK) has ruled.

The motivation for the decision not to open up an investigation into the matter was that the presenter protested against what the imam said immediately following the controversial statement.

The decision said that ”the programme features opinions that could be taken as a threat aginst those who have converted from Islam”.

However, due to the responses from the presenter, the Chancellor has decided not to investigate the matter further.

The programme in question was a panel discussion and was broadcast live by SR International's Somali service.

The initial police report was filed by Erik Johansson, at the Swedish Evangelical Mission (Evangeliska Fosterlands-Stiftelsen - EFS), after friends told him of the imam's words underlining every Muslim's responsibility to kill anyone who leaves Islam.

"I received a call from my Somali friends who had heard the programme. I don't speak the language myself and when they explained to me, I concluded that this wasn't a message which should be on an SR channel," Erik Johansson told The Local at the time.

Johansson also contacted Sveriges Radio in order to register his dismay that the item was left available on their website for more than two weeks. Soon after his telephone call the programme was removed from the website.

In a comment to the Christian newspaper Dagen following the report, SR International head Ingemar Löfgren said that he decided to pull the transcript from SR's website pending receipt of an official translation, pointing out that he is responsible for several channels broadcast in languages which he does not speak.

"If an imam calls for other Muslims to kill converts, then we have a journalistic responsibility... If he didn't get any follow-up questions then we have failed in our journalistic responsibility," he said.

Erik Johansson told The Local that the journalist had reminded the imam that they were in Sweden, to which the imam had replied that the same rules apply here.

Had the presenter not reacted as he did to the imam's statements, JK might have investigated the matter further.

”It's hard to say if we would or not. The statement was based on personal faith and the ceiling is pretty high when it comes to that kind of statement,” said Marcus Agnvall, of the the Chancellor's office to newspaper Dagen...

Al-Shabaab has denied the existence of a massive famine and forced Somalis seeking aid back into the famine zone. They have launched suicide bombings and killed civilians indiscriminately. And that is to say nothing of the everyday violence and abuse heaped on Somalis by al-Shabaab -- all the more so for the few non-Muslims they find. Somalis who are even suspected of being Christian are denied aid.

Yes, there actually is a way to make life in Somalia even worse at the hands of al-Shabaab: to try living it as a non-Muslim. "Islamic Extremists in Somalia Behead 17-year-old Christian," from Compass Direct News, October 19:

NAIROBI, Kenya, October 19 (CDN) — Militants from the Islamic extremist al Shabaab beheaded a 17-year-old Somali Christian near Mogadishu last month, a journalist in the Somali capital told Compass.

The militants, who have vowed to rid Somalia of Christianity, killed Guled Jama Muktar on Sept. 25 in his home near Deynile, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Mogadishu. The Islamic extremist group had been monitoring his family since the Christians arrived in Somalia from Kenya in 2008, said the source in Mogadishu, who requested anonymity.

The Islamic militants, who are fighting the transitional government for control of the country, knew from their observations of the family that they were Christians, the source said.

“I personally know this family as Christians who used to have secret Bible meetings in their house,” he said.

Based on talks with the boy’s parents and their neighbors, the source said al Shabaab members arrived at Muktar’s home at 6 a.m., when his parents, whose names are withheld for security reasons, were already at work at their retail space at the Hamarweyne market on the outskirts of Mogadishu.

The extremists found Muktar as he was preparing to go to school, he said.

“The neighbors heard screaming coming from the house, and then it immediately stopped,” the source said. “After awhile, they saw a white car leaving the homestead.”

The neighbors informed the parents, who hurriedly returned home from their market stall. They buried their son’s body quickly, fearing the militants would kill them as well, returned to their market space and then fled to an unknown destination, the source said.

“When the incident happened, the parents called to tell me that their son had been killed and that they feared for their lives,” the source said. “Since then, I have not heard from them.”

On the outskirts of Hudur City in Bakool region in southwestern Somalia, a kidnapped Christian convert from Islam was found decapitated on Sept. 2. Juma Nuradin Kamil was forced into a car by three suspected Islamic extremists from the al Shabaab terrorist group on Aug. 21, area sources said. After members of his community thoroughly combed the area looking for him, at 2 p.m. on Sept. 2 one of them found Kamil’s body dumped on a street.

Muslim extremists from al Shabaab, which has ties to al Qaeda, control the area some 400 kilometers (249 miles) from Mogadishu.

A Christian who saw Kamil’s body said it bore the marks of an al Shabaab killing, according to a leader in Somalia’s underground church who lives in another city.

“It is usual for the al Shabaab to decapitate those they suspect to have embraced the Christian faith, or sympathizers of western ideals,” the leader said.

Qur'an 47:4: "Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers (in fight), smite at their necks..."

With estimates of al Shabaab’s size ranging from 3,000 to 7,000, the insurgents seek to impose a strict version of sharia (Islamic law), but the government in Mogadishu fighting to retain control of the country treats Christians little better than the al Shabaab extremists do. While proclaiming himself a moderate, President Sheikh Sharif Sheik Ahmed has embraced a version of sharia that mandates the death penalty for those who leave Islam....

Muhammad ordered: "If anyone changes his religion, kill him" (Sahih Bukhari 9.84.57).

The father of one says his son had been "'misled' into thinking he could fight a holy war." "Two Cardiff men, 18, held by Kenyan anti-terror police," from BBC News, October 18:

Two 18-year-old men from Cardiff are being questioned by anti-terrorism police in Kenya.

Authorities in Kenya say the pair were arrested while crossing the border into Somalia.

The father of one man, of Somali descent, said he had flown out to save his son who had been "misled" into thinking he could fight a holy war.

Kenyan police say were under investigation by the anti-terrorism unit and are expected to be deported.

The other man is also a UK citizen, who is of Pakistani descent according to police.

A joint statement from the Muslim community in Cardiff said they were thankful the two men were safe and well and they were anxiously awaiting their return.

The father of the Somali Briton told the BBC he travelled to Kenya after his son disappeared from the family home in Cardiff.

Abdirhman Haji Abdallah told the BBC Somali Service in an interview: "He was brainwashed and taken away from us and he was told that he was going to fight a holy war in Somalia. So I travelled to Nairobi in an effort to save him."

He alerted the High Commission in Nairobi as well as the Kenyan police and gave them a photograph of his son....

Al-Shabaab: just doing what they do best. An update on this story. "Somalia bomber hits as Kenya ministers visit Mogadishu," from BBC News, October 18:

A car bomb has exploded outside the former foreign ministry in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, killing five people including the suicide bomber.

The attack came as Kenya's defence and foreign ministers were holding talks nearby with the Somali government.

Kenya sent troops to Somalia on Sunday to fight Islamist al-Shabab militants it blames for a spate of kidnappings.

There have been contradictory statements from both countries about the presence of the Kenyan force.

A Somali government general, Yusuf Dhumal, told the BBC Somali Service on Tuesday from the village of Taabto, that his troops were with the Kenyan force heading towards an al-Shabab-held town of Afmadow, 120km (75 miles) from the border.

Al-Shabab, which controls much of southern Somalia, has denied carrying out any abductions and has warned of attacks in Kenya unless the troops withdraw. [...]

The UN-backed transitional government in Mogadishu has refused to admit that the Kenyan troops are inside Somalia.

Mr Wetangula, who on Monday had said Kenya troops were in Somalia, said the talks with Somali officials had centred on bilateral relations and the fight against al-Shabab.

But his colleague Mr Haji, in an interview in Somali at Mogadishu airport, categorically denied that Kenyan troops were in Somalia.

"The Kenyan government did not declare anything of the sort... no Kenyan troops have been deployed to Somalia," he told the BBC.

He said that Kenya had always refused to be part of the African Union force in Mogadishu in order to ensure good neighbourly relations.

The BBC's Nairobi bureau editor David Okwembah says the defence minister may have given a contradictory message as he was addressing a Somali audience.

For the jihadists, respecting territorial integrity is a one-way street. Al-Shabaab's kidnapping of aid workers on Kenyan territory has provoked a major military response, so much so that the group may have overreached this time. But where they lose control of territory, they can fall back on what they do best: not fighting like men, but targeting civilians in asymmetrical warfare. That is exactly what they are threatening to do here.

An update on this story. "Somali militants threaten suicide attacks in Kenya," by Abdi Gouled and Katharine Houreld for the Associated Press, October 17:

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Somalia's most dangerous militant group threatened Kenya with suicide attacks on Monday, saying Nairobi's skyscrapers would be destroyed and its tourism industry ruined in an ominous warning one day after Kenyan troops poured into Somalia.

And now, a word from Sheikh Rage, as he is also known. Sheikh Happy remains on indefinite unpaid leave, while Sheikh Lust, Sheikh Pride, Sheikh Envy, and Sheikh Greed are in line to receive bonuses.

Al-Shabab spokesman Ali Mohamud Rage told a news conference in Mogadishu on Monday that Kenya must pull its troops out of Somalia. "Otherwise remember what happened in Uganda's capital," he said.

Al-Shabab unleashed near simultaneous suicide bombings at public venues in Kampala in July 2010 as crowds gathered to watch the World Cup final on TV, killing 76 people. The militant group said the attack was in retaliation for Uganda's deployment of troops to Mogadishu as part of the African Union peacekeeping force there.

Hundreds of Kenyan troops poured into Somalia over the weekend following the kidnappings of four Europeans inside Kenya near the Somali border. Kenyan officials say the country has the right to defend itself from Somalia's most powerful militant group, though Rage denied the group had anything to do with the kidnappings.

"We say to Kenya: Did you consider the consequences of the invasion? We know fighting more than you and defeated other invaders before," Rage said.

"Your attack to us means your skyscrapers will be destroyed, your tourism will disappear. We shall inflict on you the same damage you inflicted on us. You have to see what happened to the other aggressors, like (Uganda President Yoweri) Museveni and his country when they invaded us. We hit them in their country," Rage said....

"The same damage?" Kenya didn't make your "skyscrapers and tourism" disappear. Kenya didn't destroy your cities and make them uninhabitable. You did that all by yourselves.

That, after all, is one reason al-Shabaab has tried to block Somalis from aid camps and push them back into the famine zone: to "protect" them from "Christian" influences. At least that is the official line, as the jihadists attempt to starve the population into submission by controlling access to aid.

But al-Shabaab's jihad against that supposed "threat" has not stopped at the border. Most recently, the group kidnapped two Spanish aid workers from Doctors Without Borders.

Al-Shabaab's Jihadists Without Borders expect respect for territorial integrity to be a one-way street. "Kenya helicopter crashes; push into Somalia begins," by Abi Guled and Katharine Houreld for the Associated Press, October 16:

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Kenyan military forces moved into southern Somalia on Sunday, an official and residents said, a day after top Kenyan defense officials said the country has the right to defend itself after a rash of militant kidnappings inside Kenya.

Late Sunday evening, a military helicopter crashed and caught fire inside Kenya from an apparent mechanical malfunction, a diplomat and a resident said. No civilian casualties were reported but the status of the pilots on board was not immediately known.

Residents in southern Somalia said that columns of Kenyan troops had moved in and that military aircraft were flying overhead. Resident Ali Nur Hussein said Kenyan troops arrived in tanks and military trucks, and that troops were coordinating with Somali government soldiers.

Kenya's government spokesman, Alfred Mutua, said Kenyan troops "are pursuing al-Shabab across the border." He did not give any other details.

In response, al-Shabab, Somalia's most dangerous militant group, tried to raise the alarm in areas it controls. Residents in the town of Qoqani who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals said militants were going into homes and forcibly recruiting new fighters.

"Are you ready to live under Christians?" one al-Shabab official shouted on a militant radio station. "Get out of your homes and defend your dignity and religion. Today is the day to defend against the enemy."

A Somali government spokesman, Abdirahman Omar Osman, said his government welcomes logistical support from "our Kenyan brothers," but said Somalia did not need Kenyan troops.

"Our forces are ready to combat al-Shabab and they are doing so effectively. They are ready at the borders, so sending troops is not needed," Osman said.

The helicopter crashed in Liboi, a town about 10 miles (20 kilometers) from the Kenya-Somalia border. The Liboi resident asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals. The diplomat's employer does not allow him to be identified.

Mutua and Kenya's military spokesmen did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Kenyan troops have frequently crossed the border into Somalia, but Sunday's push appears to be a bigger and more concerted effort. Minister of Internal Security George Saitoti told a news conference on Saturday that Kenyan forces would pursue al-Shabab into Somalia.

"For the first time our country is threatened with the most serious level of terrorism," he said.

The public declaration to attack al-Shabab came two days after armed militants kidnapped two Spanish aid workers with the group Doctors Without Borders from the Dadaab refugee camp, a sprawling expanse of temporary homes where almost 500,000 Somalis live. The population of Dadaab, the world's largest refugee camp, has swelled by tens of thousands in recent months because of Somalia's famine.

On Oct. 1, Somali gunmen took a wheelchair-bound Frenchwoman from her home near the resort town of Lamu. Somalis also abducted a British woman from a Kenyan coastal resort in September. Her husband was killed in the attack.

Kenya's push north into Somalia will open another front that Somali militants must contend with. African Union forces from Uganda and Burundi have expanded their control of Mogadishu in recent months and have almost completely forced al-Shabab out of the capital.

Don't tell al-Shabaab about the grand Pastafarian conspiracy to replace the entirety of Sharia Law with the eight "I'd Really Rather You Didn'ts." On the other hand, Pastafarian heaven apparently includes a beer volcano and stripper factory. Given the prize the jihadists always have their eyes on, maybe there would be hope for interfaith dialogue there.

"AU, Somali forces seize Mogadishu rebel bases," from Agence France-Presse, October 10:

African Union and Somali government forces on Monday seized strategic positions from Islamist insurgents in an offensive to flush out the last pockets of rebellion in Mogadishu.

The drive came nearly a week after the insurgents carried out their worst ever suicide attack in the Somali capital, killing at least 82 people and demonstrating they were still able to wreak havoc deep inside the city.

The AU and government forces took a former pasta factory building, two key junctions and two districts in the northeast of the city, giving them control of movement into Mogadishu from the northern front.

One AU soldier was killed and six were wounded in Monday's fighting, said force spokesman Paddy Ankunda.

"The outer north and eastern fringes of the city must still be cleared, but key ground and buildings are no longer under the control of the extremists," Ankunda said.

"The challenge is now to protect civilians from the sort of terror attack we saw last week," he added.

Asymmetrical warfare is cheap, requiring little holding of territory, and little fighting like men in open combat. Rather, the jihadists need only be vandals -- occasionally highly effective, deadly vandals, without warning. That is sufficient to terrorize a society and create a sense of a security vacuum for which they will offer Sharia as the only "solution" they will accept.

"The pasta factory compound was an operational hub for the extremists from which they shell civilian targets. This operation is intended to save the lives of the people who have returned to their homes," a government statement said.

The AU and Somali government forces began the offensive on Saturday to expel remnants left in Mogadishu after Shebab fighters abandoned most of their positions there in August.

However, a Shebab official who did not want to be named said they allowed the African Union Mission for Somalia (AMISOM) troops to take the pasta factory to ensnare them.

"Allowing the AMISOM troops to come to the pasta factory was just a trap planned earlier so that they spread out their troops," the official told AFP.

"The idea of the Shebab was not to defend any positions, but to do as much damage to AMISOM."...

You Pasta-phobe.

"Harassment?" Bad. Suicide truck bomb? A-OK, apparently. Boko Haram, with whom al-Shabaab is said to have a growing alliance, must be so proud. An update on this story. "Somali Bomber Who Killed 100 Slammed Education," from the Associated Press, October 6:

MOGADISHU, Somalia – The Somali suicide bomber who killed more than 100 people, including students seeking scholarships, in an attack near the education ministry was a school dropout who had declared that young people should forget about secular education and instead wage jihad.

Bashar Abdullahi Nur, who detonated a massive blast Tuesday that covered the capital in dust more than a half-mile away, had given an interview before the attack that was later aired on a militant-run radio station.

"Now those who live abroad are taken to a college and never think about the hereafter. They never think about the harassed Muslims," he said. "He wakes up in the morning, goes to college and studies and accepts what the infidels tell him, while infidels are massacring Muslims."

The U.N. said Thursday that more than 100 people had died in the explosion in Mogadishu.

Dozens were wounded, including Somalia's deputy health minister. Tuesday's attack killed some of Somalia's brightest young minds, including students gathered around a notice board to learn about the results of scholarships from the Turkish government.

The attack took place near a building housing several government ministries, and it was not immediately clear what was the precise target. However, it is not the first time the al-Qaida-linked militants have targeted students. In 2009, the al-Shabab group attacked a graduation ceremony, killing medical students and doctors.

Jihad causes poverty:

"These attacks, which targeted some of the country's very few university-level students, as well as the dedicated civil servants working to enhance Somali public institutions and social services under extremely difficult circumstances, are a direct blow to the fabric -- and future -- of the nation," said Shamsul Bari, the U.N.'s independent human rights expert in Somalia.

Al-Shabab has vowed to increase attacks "day by day" as part of an effort to defeat the weak U.N.-backed Somali government and the 9,000 African Union peacekeepers stationed in the country.

The ultraconservative Islamist group is known for the hard punishments it metes out against people, such as chopping off the hands of thieves [Qur'an 5:38] and stoning adulterers to death [Sahih Bukhari 8.82.816]. The group considers the secular education as a form of Western invasion into the minds of the Muslims.

Suicide bombings, unheard of in Somalia before 2007, have become increasingly frequent....

One analyst posed the rhetorical question: "How, precisely, does allowing hundreds of thousands of captive fellow Muslims to starve advance any Islamic or Somali cause?"

It is about control. A weakened population of citizens who must devote all of their energy to securing their next rations is in no position to fight back. By controlling access to aid, al-Shabaab keeps the remaining population at its mercy, and the group can attempt to purge the country of its enemies, real and imagined, and Christians, to whom it has denied aid.

For its part, al-Shabaab has consistently denied the famine exists, calling it a conspiracy to drive Somalis toward "Christian" influences.

"Islamist Shebaab push starving Somalis back into famine zone," from Agence France-Presse, September 23:

Somalia’s Al Qaeda-linked rebels said yesterday they were moving over 12,000 starving families back into famine zones they had fled, where the UN has warned they will die without help.

Draconian aid restrictions imposed by the extremist Shebaab are blamed for turning harsh drought across the Horn of Africa into famine in the areas they control, with 750,000 people at risk of death in coming months, the UN has said.

“The mujahedeen fighters, in their bid to help people displaced by drought, started working on plans to send them back home where they will be assisted, God willing,” said Sheik Mahad Abu-Safiya, a senior Shebaab official.

The families, estimated to number at least 50,000 people, were “taken back to their homes with packages to feed them for three months,” he added. Witnesses said the packages included rice, maize and cooking oil.

However, the Shebaab have refused most international assistance, and blocked people fleeing drought and famine in the Bay and Bakool regions from travelling in search of aid to Mogadishu, where relief efforts are centred.

Crowded trucks began moving people late on Wednesday from camps in and around the Shebaab-held town of Baidoa back to their original villages, up to 50km southwest of the town, officials and witnesses said.

“The process has started and we have moved the first of the 12,000 displaced families to their original locations,” Mohamed Walid, another Shebaab official, told reporters.

“Most of the displaced people were moved from a big camp at Baidoa airport, they were taken on long trucks,” said witness Osmail Mohamed.

“I have seen people returning onboard trucks with food distributed to them by the Shebaab,” said Abdulahi Derow, who said the food they were given was “enough for a month.”

Local aid workers said the Shebaab had ordered them to help move people back to the villages they had fled from.

“The Shebaab group started sending people back to their homes, and gave them some food,” said one Somali aid worker said, asking not to be named. “But people are still in need of help.”

Shebaab fighters last month pulled out of positions in the war-torn capital Mogadishu where they were battling the weak Western-backed government, but they still control swathes of south and central Somalia.

The UN has declared six regions in south Somalia famine zones, the majority in Shebaab-controlled areas.

Drought, high food prices and fighting in Somalia have increased the number of those in need of humanitarian assistance across the Horn of Africa to 13.3mn, according to the UN.

Access to Shebaab areas is a major concern, with a group of 20 international and Somali aid agencies calling on Wednesday for talks with the Shebab to create “free passage of assistance.”

The agencies warned the situation was the worst they had ever seen in decades of work in Somalia, and was expected to deteriorate further with rains next month likely to worsen conditions for disease.

“Never before have we faced such acute suffering with so many lives at stake,” they warned in a joint letter. “Somalia is at a turning point.”

Ken Menkhaus, professor at Davidson College in the US state of North Carolina, called for a “diplomatic surge” from the “West and the Islamic world” to ensure both the Shebaab and the Western-backed government allow access to affected people.

Writing in a paper yesterday for the Washington-based Enough pressure group, Menkhaus called the Shebaab an “Islamic Khmer Rouge, in which an armed group with a deeply twisted interpretation of the faith presides over the mass deaths of its own people.”

The Shebaab “must be made to justify its policy to Islamic leaders and scholars,” Menkhaus added.

One would think there would be a wave of outrage and outpouring of assistance from nearby Islamic countries. Perhaps what Mogadishu needs to do is find a way to blame Israel.

“How, precisely, does allowing hundreds of thousands of captive fellow Muslims to starve advance any Islamic or Somali cause?”

Why not roses and lilies? From our Beyond Parody Department: "Why not Islamist radio station in Somalia giving guns, bombs to children," from the San Francisco Examiner, September 20 (thanks to all who sent this in):

An Islamist militia-run radio station in Somalia said it is awarding guns and bombs to three children who won a Quran recital contest. Andulus radio station — operated by the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab rebels — announced that the first prize winner in the contest received a rifle and $700, the second prize winner got a rifle and $500, and the third prize winner received two bombs. All three children also received Islamist books.

Curiously, terrorism charges against those who were arrested "were later changed to preparing murder [,] and the prosecutor said it related only to one individual." It is not entirely clear from the wording of that sentence whether the defendants were believed to be targeting only one person, or if only one of the three is to face the most severe charges.

However, one will recall that earlier reports focused on Muhammad cartoonist Lars Vilks as a possible target, and an arts center was evacuated on the night of an event Vilks had at one point stated that he would attend.

"Swedish security police raid mosque in Goteborg," from the Associated Press, September 18:

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Sweden's security police raided the administrative office of a mosque in the country's second largest city , the force said on Sunday. Security police spokeswoman Sirpa Franzen said Thursday's raid against the Bellevue Mosque in Goteborg was prompted by prosecutor Agnetha Hilding Qvarnstrom, who heads the investigation against three men arrested on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.

Mosque officials weren't immediately available for comments.

Franzen declined to say if the raid was connected to the arrests and wouldn't give more details. The force only confirmed the operation, following a report in a GT tabloid.

The men, of Somali and Iraqi origin, were arrested as around 400 people were evacuated from an arts center and were initially suspected of plotting a terrorist attack. However, the charges were later changed to preparing murder and the prosecutor said it related only to one individual....