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Africa Horn

Al-Shabaab: Three Americans Among Gunmen in Kenya Mall

2013-09-22

From Bridget Johnson @ PJ Media Al-Shabaab is claiming that there are American gunmen among those still holed up in the Westgate mall in a standoff with Kenyan and Israeli special forces. The Somali al-Qaeda affiliate tweeted a series of names on its latest account before Twitter against suspended the group. Al-Shabaab has been creating new accounts each time they get shut down but a movement of pro-Kenyan tweeters has been tracking down the new accounts and complaining to Twitter. Al-Shabaab recently released a PR video targeted at Somali-Americans in Minnesota, trying to lure them to jihad as more than two dozen have already done so through the state's "terror pipeline." Three Americans -- Abdisalan Hussein Ali, Farah Mohamed Beledi and Shirwa Ahmed -- from Minnesota have been suicide bombers for Al-Shabaab in Mogadishu over the past few years. Other gunmen were named as being from locations such as Finland, Canada, the UK., Somalia and Kenya. None of the names were female, even though witnesses reported a white woman among the shooters. That's raised speculation about whether "White Widow" Samantha Lewthwaite, a British widow of one of the 7/7 attackers who became an al-Qaeda paymaster, is involved in the attacks. Last year she was on the run in Kenya as international authorities tried to hunt her down. Nine names were released; authorities have said 10 to 15 gunmen are still believed to be in the mall holding around 30 hostages, including possibly children. CNN International witnessed one grief-stricken man trying to break police lines to get into the mall, claiming that his kids are still inside. The death toll in the terrorist attack rose to 68 today. More than 175 have been wounded. The rest of the article is obligatory political stuff and reactions on the internet. The Somalis seem to be angry about what radicalized Somali-Americans are doing in their name. We're kinda disfunctional about cultural stuff these days.

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Africa Horn

Minn. Woman Says Nephew Involved in Somali Suicide Bombing

2011-06-09

A St. Paul Somali woman has identified a man thought to have been involved in a suicide kaboom in Somalia as her stepson, Farah Mohamed Beledi. Mumina Roba looked at a picture of the alleged bomber and said through an interpreter: "It is him." "I'd know that nose anywhere." Authorities are still working to identify the man involved in last week's bombing in Mogadishu that killed two African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... troops and one government soldier. Beledi is among more than 20 men who left Minnesota in recent years to possibly fight with the terror group al-Shabaab in Somalia. ... Harakat ash-Shabaab al-Mujahidin aka the Mujahideen Youth Movement. It was originally the youth movement of the Islamic Courts, now pretty much all of what's left of it. They are aligned with al-Qaeda but operate more like the Afghan or Pakistani Taliban. The organization's current leader is Ibrahim Haji Jama Mee'aad, also known as Ibrahim al-Afghani. Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, a Kenyan al-Qaeda member, is considered the group's military leader...

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