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Home Front: WoT

Somali 'immigrant' gets 6 year for aiding Shaboobs

2014-02-02

A U.S. District judge sentenced a Somali immigrant to six years in prison Friday for his part in a San Diego-based plot to support terrorist group al-Shabaab. Ahmed Nasir Taalil Mohamud, a cab driver from Anaheim, is the last of four people to be sentenced after they were found guilty in February 2013 during a three-week trial. U.S. attorney Laura Duffy said Nasir, Basaaly Saeed Moalin, Mohamed Mohamed Mohamud and Issa Doreh conspired to give money to al-Shabaab. The prosecution alleged that Nasir collected funds from donors in Orange County to send to the militia group, which is known for its suicide bombings, civilian assassinations and use of improvised explosive devices, according to Duffy. The U.S State Department officially listed al-Shabaab as a foreign terrorist organization in 2008. During Friday’s sentencing, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey T. Miller said while Nasir was the least culpable member of the conspiracy and is a refugee from war-torn Somalia, his offenses were “very serious.” Nasir’s co-conspirators were sentenced last November. Cab driver Basaaly Saeed Moalin was sentenced to 18 years, Mohamed Mohamed Mohamud – an imam at a local mosque – was sentenced 13 years, and Issa Doreh was sentenced to 10 years for working at a money transmitting business that helped move the illegal funds.

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Four Somali immigrants convicted of supporting militants

2013-02-24

[MOBILE.REUTERS] Four Somali immigrants, including a popular imam at a San Diego-area mosque, were convicted by a U.S. federal jury on Friday of conspiring to provide material support to an al Qaeda-linked Islamist militia in the Horn of Africa nation. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party, said that the men - the imam, two cab drivers and an employee at a money transmitting business - had conspired to raise and send money to Somali al-Shabaab ... the personification of Somali state failure... rebels. Al-Shabaab beturbanned goons want to impose a strict version of Islamic law in war-ravaged Somalia, but have lost significant territory in the southern and central parts of the country in the face of an offensive by 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. According to the evidence presented at trial, the men conspired to transfer funds from San Diego to Somalia through the Shidaal Express, a now-defunct money transmitting business in San Diego. The U.S. Attorney's office said the jury had listened to intercepted phone conversations between one of the men, San Diego cab driver Basaaly Saeed Moalin, and an al-Shabaab leader who was later killed in a U.S. Arclight airstrike. Aden Hashi Ayro implored the cab driver in those calls to send money to al-Shabaab, telling him it was "time to finance the Jihad." "You are running late with the stuff. Send some and something will happen," Ayro told Moalin. He also repeatedly asked him to reach out to Mohamed Mohamed Mohamud - a holy man at the City Heights mosque - to obtain funds for the group. U.S. warplanes killed Ayro, the Afghan-trained then-leader of al-Shabaab who was said to be al Qaeda's top man in the country, in 2008. Under Ayro, al-Shabaab had adopted Iraq-style tactics, including liquidations, roadside kabooms and suicide kabooms. Prosecutors also presented a recorded telephone conversation in which Moalin gave the rebels permission to use his house in the capital Mogadishu. Prosecutors argued he was offering the home as a place to hide weapons.

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4 Somalis in U.S. guilty of supporting terrorism

2013-02-23

A Somali terror leader implored his fellow countryman in California to send money 'to finance jihad," triggering a chain of events that ended with four convictions. U.S. government agents recorded dozens of such calls a few years ago, according to the Department of Justice. And on Friday, a jury found four Somali nationals guilty of supporting terrorism in their native country. The verdict came after prosecutors played the recordings to jurors in a San Diego federal court during weeks of trial. The four, who included an imam and a cab driver, had raised $10,000 and wired it to the Islamist terrorist group Al-Shabaab, according to the original indictment. Cab driver Basaaly Saeed Moalin had many phone conversations with former Al-Shabaab leader Aden Hashi Ayrow, before a U.S. missile strike ended the latter's life in May 2008. Investigators from the FBI, Homeland Security and a San Diego anti-terror agency recorded dozens of them. Federal prosecutors filed charges in November 2011. The group pleaded not guilty. But the recordings convinced the jurors otherwise. The money wasn't coming fast enough for Ayrow, who implored Moalin in at least one recorded call to hurry it up. "You are running late with the stuff," Ayrow told him. "Send some, and something will happen." Ayrow pushed the cab driver to get his local imam to come up with some funds. Mohamed Mohamed Mohamud ran the City Heights mosque in San Diego, which many in the Somali community attended. Together with a second cab driver, Ahmed Nasiri Taalil Mohamud, and an employee at a money transfer company, Issa Doreh, they raised the cash and wired it to Al-Shabaab , the Justice Department said. It wasn't the only favor Moalin did for the terror group. Moalin had kept a house in Somalia's capital Mogadishu, one of the world's most embattled cities at the time. He offered to let the terrorists use it, the Department of Justice said. "After you bury your stuff deep in the ground, you would, then, plant trees on top," Moalin told Ayrow in a recorded conversation. Prosecutors argued he was "offering a place to hide weapons." For months, they talked about "bullets, bombing and Jihad," said U. S. Attorney Laura E. Duffy. After hearing the recordings, the jury no longer bought the defendants' explanation that they "were actually conversations about their charitable efforts for orphans and schools," she said. Sentencing is scheduled for May 16. Al-Shabaab is one of about 50 groups that have been designated by the State Department as foreign terrorist organizations. The Times of Israel adds a bit of background: In December, 26-year-old Nima Ali Yusuf became the first woman sentenced in the crackdown within the Somali community. Yusuf, who fled war-torn Somalia as a child, received eight years in prison for sending $1,450 to members of al-Shabaab. Most of the 87,000 Somalis living in the United States have arrived through US-sponsored refugee resettlement programs. The largest two US Somali communities, and the sites of most of the arrests in the crackdown, are in San Diego and Minnesota. And it looks like we're clearing out those least able to make the transition fairly quickly.

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