Where did he get the idea that he should join the jihad in Somalia? Was it in Tinton Falls, N.J.? Is the ideology of jihad violence taught in mosques there? Does anyone know? Does anyone care?
“New Jersey Man Appears Before Tribunal in Ethiopia,” by Jeffrey Gettleman and Will Connors in the New York Times, with thanks to Davida:
NAIROBI, Kenya, April 13 “” Amir Mohamed Meshal, an American terrorism suspect jailed in Ethiopia, appeared in front of a military tribunal there on Friday, but Ethiopian officials did not disclose the outcome.
Amir Mohamed Meshal, of Tinton Falls, N.J., was arrested at Somalia’s border with Kenya. Ethiopian officials say he was fighting for Islamists.
Mr. Meshal, a community college dropout from Tinton Falls, N.J., has been in detention since late January, when he tried to escape the war in Somalia and was arrested at the Kenyan border. A few weeks later, Ethiopian officials said, he was deported to a prison in Ethiopia, along with several other foreign citizens who had joined Somalia’s Islamist movement and fled after Ethiopian forces routed the Islamists.
[…]
Still, American officials remained confident that Mr. Meshal would be released soon. This week, American officials said that there was no evidence Mr. Meshal had committed any crimes in Somalia and that they were pressing the Ethiopians to expedite his release.
Mr. Meshal’s name appeared on a Homeland Security Department’s watch list of potentially dangerous passengers, which threatened to delay his return to the United States. But one American official involved in negotiating Mr. Meshal’s travel situation said Friday that “it will get worked out.”
I’m sure it will.