“I think it’s a very serious threat because it’s not only a threat to Somalis in Somalia, it’s also a threat to Swedish security.” Indeed.
“Swedes recruited by Somali terror group,” from The Local, May 5 (thanks to C. Cantoni):
An al-Qaeda-linked extremist group in Somalia has recruited more than 20 young people from Sweden to fight in the war-torn African country, the Swedish Security Service (Säpo) fears.
Somali Islamic insurgency group Harakat al-Shabab Mujahideen (“Movement of Warrior Youth”), better known as Al-Shabab, which is linked to al-Qaeda, is thought to have recruited dozens of Swedish youth to engage in terrorist acts, according to Göteborgs-Tidningen.
Gothenburg was identified by several sources as the largest recruitment base in the country, the report said. Sweden is also a fundraising hub for the group, according to Svenska Dagbladet editorial writer Per Gudmundson, who has written extensively about the issue.
“I think it’s a very serious threat because it’s not only a threat to Somalis in Somalia, it’s also a threat to Swedish security,” Gudmundson told The Local.
“People who go through wars and conflicts in war zones come back as trained operatives. We’ve had in Sweden people who’ve been trained in Afghanistan and come back as seasoned veterans. They are regarded with high esteem in jihadist terms and can motivate young people to fight. Also, when it comes to Swedish security, we are not immune to this. The Mohammed caricatures have shown places in northern Europe can be targets.”
At a mosque – a converted food hall – in Gothenburg’s Gamlestan quarter, a Danish-Somali man who tried to assassinate Kurt Westergaard, the Danish cartoonist who drew the controversial Mohammed cartoon published in Jyllands-Posten, tried to recruit followers, according to a Danish newspaper.
“There are no supporters of al-Shabab here,” mosque spokesman Abdi Fatah Shidane told Göteborgs-Tidningen….
Of course not!