Dear Patriotic Global Citizens and Friends of Africa (Ethiopia):
It is interesting that the US is now becoming the Diaspora Hub of fomer Africa torturers! How many have got US Asylum under false pretext where most of the Terrorist leaders have opened official offices and the US does not seem to know it or overlooks it.
Imagine, preaching Good Governance where you are giving solace and protection for terrorists! it is amazing and we need to address this issue as African Diaspora allover the world
That might be one way of Getting Africa on the Obama Agenda! We need crreative win-win partnerships!
More recently the wave of new Jihadists and terrorists in the US among the Horn communities, especially Eritrean and Somali youth is challenging the future of this country and we need to be vigilant that the Ethiopian youth are not recruited into criminal local and international gangs.
The attached article is worth considering by Patriotic Global Citizens and US Security personnel.
Please read below some interesting information.
Dr B
Can we make the Diaspora a terrorist free society? time will tell!
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- Pajamas Media - http://pajamasmedia.com -
What Senators Didn’t Hear About Somali-American Jihadists
Posted By Patrick Poole On March 13, 2009 @ 12:35 am In . Positioning, Africa, Homeland Security, US News, World News | 28 Comments
Since 1991, Somalia has been an ungoverned, lawless state. In recent weeks, things have gotten worse as the al-Qaeda-allied group al-Shabaab (”The Youth”) tightens its grip on the country. Earlier this week the cabinet of “president” Sheikh Sherif Ahmed endorsed a plan to [1] institute Sharia law in areas it controls.
In a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Tuesday, Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Michael Maples testified that analysts expect that al-Shabaab will officially [2] merge with al-Qaeda in the very near future.
Events in Somalia are not so distant. Since this past summer, as many as 40 Somali-American men have left the U.S. to [3] join up with al-Shabaab and train in their terrorist camps in Somalia. And one of those men, [4] Shirwa Ahmed, a graduate of the University of Minnesota, [5] launched a suicide attack in northern Somalia on October 28 that killed at least 30 civilians — the first recorded case of an American suicide bomber.
And earlier this week it was reported that a [6] federal grand jury has been impaneled to investigate the escalating issue of Somali-American jihadists and Somali terrorist groups operating in the Minneapolis area, which adds to the list of [7] ongoing investigations in Columbus, OH; Washington, DC; San Diego, CA; Boston, MA; Atlanta, GA; Seattle, WA; and Portland, ME.
The problem has concerned investigators to the point that high schools in some of these areas have been briefed by law enforcement to watch out for signs of radicalization among their Somali male students.
But you wouldn’t have gotten even the slightest sense of urgency or alarm if you had listened to the testimony of two government officials [8] testifying on the matter before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee on Wednesday, chaired by Senator Joe Lieberman.
Instead, what you would have heard about from the testimony of FBI Associate Executive Assistant Director J. Philip Mudd and National Counterterrorism Center Deputy Director Andrew M. Liepman is government inter-agency initiatives and outreach programs to selected Somali community leaders — in some cases the very individuals responsible for the radicalization and recruiting to al-Shabaab’s cause.
The primary narrative spun by these two top homeland security officials and the other three panelists is of poor Somalis deprived of any opportunities and victimized by racist America, who have no alternative but to turn to gangs and jihadists to vent their rage at American foreign policy.
These officials also sanitized their reports of any politically incorrect facts. For instance, in his [9] published testimony Mudd assured the committee that there is no widespread support for violence and terrorism within the American Muslim community, citing a 2007 Pew poll in support.
What Mudd forgot to mention was that same Pew poll, the most comprehensive survey ever of the American Muslim community, found that an astounding 26 percent of 18-to-30-year-old Muslim males — the very group being targeted by jihadist recruiters — [10] supported suicide attacks.
The true causes of the Somali jihadists, however, are much more obvious than these officials cared to let on to the Senate committee.
In December 2007, months before the Somali men began disappearing from Minneapolis, I reported exclusively here at Pajamas Media about a [11] jihadist fundraiser in the Twin Cities area attended by hundreds of local Somalis.
The event featured top jihadist organizer Zakaria Mahmoud Haji-Abdi, the deputy chairman of the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia (ARS) and now second in command to Somali “president” Sheikh Sherif Ahmed.
In that instance, homeland security officials failed to prevent Abdi from entering the country and conducting a series of fundraisers here in the U.S., where he encouraged recruitment to the jihad and financial support from the Somali community for their cause.
As the story of the missing Somali men began to unfold late last year, I [12] reported that some of those same homeland security officials have now admitted privately that the fundraiser the year before had been the “tipping point” for radicalization in the Minneapolis area.
That notwithstanding, another ARS official was recently allowed to enter into the U.S. to conduct even more jihadist fundraisers. (Stay tuned to Pajamas Media for more on that report.)
And it is no big secret what the common denominator is to all of the missing men — all attended the Abubakar as-Siddique Mosque in south Minneapolis, led by extremist imam Sheikh Abdirahman Ahmed, the largest mosque in the area.
Seeing as this link between the mosque and the missing men has been the focus of recent articles in the [13] Los Angeles Times and [14] Newsweek, it is hard to believe that this has escaped homeland security’s notice, especially since the mosque’s imam and youth director have been placed on the agency’s “no-fly” list and were prevented from [15] leaving the country back in November.
Some of the families of the missing men have been much more forthright in placing blame — publicly accusing the mosque and its leaders for the disappearance of their kin. And yet there was not a single mention of the mosque or the imam’s connection in either Mudd’s or Liepman’s published testimony.
Even more shocking is the revelation from a Fox News [6] article on Tuesday that FBI officials had yet to meet with mosque officials (a meeting was scheduled for this Thursday).
For several years, many leaders in the Somali community have complained about radical elements in their community who actively support terrorism. Included in this group is Abdirahman Warsame, who runs the Terror Free Somalia Foundation and tracks these issues on the group’s [16] website.
Last year Mr. Warsame published an [17] article detailing how the taxpayer-financed Voice of America Somali Service was dominated by supporters of al-Shabaab and the Islamic Courts Union.
They have also complained that many of the leaders the U.S. government relies upon for direction and advice are in some cases the same individuals responsible for radicalization.
One group that the Department of Homeland Security has turned to in this crisis is the North American Council of Somali Imams, which includes as one of its top leaders none other than Abubakar as-Siddique imam Abdirahman Ahmed.
Another regular complaint made is that government programs and offices supposed to serve the Somali community get involved in clan and inter-tribal politics. Many of these programs, most of which receive public funds, are run by the dominant Hawiye clan, and services intended to help Somalis integrate are frequently denied or deliberately obstructed to those of other clans.
Even more troubling was an April 2007 [18] report by Nashville NBC affiliate WSMV, which discovered that a Somali center operating on federal grant money still received $500,000 despite the fact that the center’s director was under investigation for obstructing a terror investigation.
(See also my Pajamas Media [19] exposé on the Ohio charter schools targeting Somali children operated by terrorist front group CAIR, which are among the worst performing schools in the state.)
Thus, perhaps the reason why none of these issues was raised by FBI Assistant Director Mudd and NCTC Deputy Director Liepman during Wednesday’s Senate hearing is that any answers they could have provided the senators would only expose their agencies to even more difficult questions about what they are doing and who they are doing it with. So it was best for them and their agencies not to get into too many specifics.
Anyone following this issue closely in recent months knows the potential danger Somali jihadists carrying American passports pose to our national security, but you wouldn’t get that impression listening to Wednesday’s hearing. If Senator Lieberman and his Homeland Security Committee colleagues want to avoid a potential homegrown 9/11, they’re going to have to circumvent the official channels and the politically correct agency propaganda to get an accurate assessment of how serious the threat is and how rapidly it is growing.
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Article printed from Pajamas Media: http://pajamasmedia.com
URL to article: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/what-senators-didnt-hear-about-somali-american-jihadists/
URLs in this post:
[1] institute Sharia law: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7935879.stm
[2] merge with al-Qaeda: http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/mar/10/official-somali-group-expected-to-join-al-qaida
[3] join up with al-Shabaab: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/03/eveningnews/main4841761.shtml
[4] Shirwa Ahmed: http://kaaltv.com/article/stories/S678523.shtml?cat=10151
[5] launched a suicide attack: http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/Story?id=6331697&page=1
[6] federal grand jury has been impaneled: http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,508484,00.html
[7] ongoing investigations: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/10/AR2009031003901_pf.html
[8] testifying on the matter: http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?Fuseaction=Hearings.Detail&HearingID=35e68562-1606-409a
-9118-3edfbb8e87c8
[9] published testimony: http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/_files/031109Mudd.pdf
[10] supported suicide attacks: http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2244293620070522
[11] jihadist fundraiser: http://pajamasmedia.com../../../../../blog/homeland_security_snoozes_whil
[12] reported: http://pajamasmedia.com../../../../../blog/somalis-leaving-us-for-jihad
[13] Los Angeles Times: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-na-missing18-2009jan18,0,3479314,full.story
[14] Newsweek: http://www.newsweek.com/id/181408
[15] leaving the country: http://www.startribune.com/35292979.html?elr=KArksDyycyUtyycyUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUU
[16] website: http://terrorfreesomalia.blogspot.com/
[17] article: http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/01/problems_in_the_voasomali_serv.html
[18] report: http://www.wsmv.com/iteam/13224577/detail.html
[19] exposé: http://pajamasmedia.com../../../../../blog/cair-gets-failing-grades-at-running-ohio-charter-schools
Christian Science Monitor
March 4, 2009
High court orders a new look at one man's quest for US asylum
Warren Richey
An Eritrean who worked at a prison where torture occurred gets another chance to live in America.
Washington - An Eritrean man who was forced to serve as a guard in a military prison where inmates were tortured and killed has won another chance to obtain asylum in the United States.
In an 8-to-1 decision Tuesday, the US Supreme Court reversed an immigration board decision rejecting the man's asylum bid.
Daniel Negusie's application was denied because US officials concluded he had participated in persecution of inmates while serving at the prison in Eritrea.
Mr. Negusie and his lawyers argued that he was coerced under threat of death to serve as a guard and that his prison work was involuntary. He said although he witnessed torture during his four years as a guard, he never personally beat or killed anyone. Negusie eventually fled and stowed away on a cargo ship to the US.
His asylum application was rejected under a US law that bars any refugee involved in acts of persecution. The law prohibits granting asylum to "any person who ordered, incited, assisted, or otherwise participated in the persecution of any person on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion."
Negusie was told that US law makes no allowance for those who were coerced into assisting acts of persecution. The decision was upheld by the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) and the Fifth US Circuit Court of Appeals.
Negusie's lawyers took his case to the Supreme Court, arguing that the law bars only those who voluntarily commit acts of persecution, not those forced to commit such acts. The threat of being forced to engage in the persecution of others is itself a form of persecution, they said.
Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy said the appeals court and the immigration board misapplied a prior precedent. Under that precedent, a person who engaged in persecution, even involuntarily, must be excluded.
Justice Kennedy said the prior precedent interpreted a World War II-era statute. The statute that applies in Negusie's case, the Refugee Act of 1980, has not yet been thoroughly interpreted by the immigration agency, he said. The court reversed the earlier decisions and remanded Negusie's case back to immigration officials to interpret and apply the 1980 law.
The court action leaves it open to the Obama administration to decide whether to adopt a restrictive reading of the law requiring anyone who persecutes to be excluded from living in the US. The remand order also leaves it open for the agency to adopt a broader interpretation that would allow Negusie and others like him to be granted asylum in the US.
Government lawyers had argued that Congress sought to draw a bright line in the statute to "firmly dissociate" the US from anyone who participates in persecution of others. The suffering of the victims was no less horrific, they said, simply because those involved were acting under duress.
Negusie routinely guarded prisoners who were kept in the hot sun as a form of punishment, according to the government's brief. At least one person Negusie guarded died during such punishment, the brief says.
Government lawyers compared the Negusie case with a 1981 Supreme Court decision involving Feodor Fedorenko, a Russian soldier captured during World War II by the Nazis. After serving time as a war prisoner, he became a guard at the Treblinka death camp in Poland, where 800,000 Jews and others were murdered.
After the war, Fedorenko came to the US and eventually became a citizen. When his service at the death camp was uncovered, the government sought to strip him of his citizenship and deport him.
Fedorenko claimed his work at the death camp was involuntary, that he was simply following orders. The Supreme Court rejected that argument in a 7-to-2 ruling. The high court based that ruling on its reading of a 1948 immigration law, the Displaced Persons Act. The law required the exclusion from the US of anyone who "assisted the enemy in persecuting civilians" or "voluntarily assisted the enemy forces ... in their operations."
After being deported to the Soviet Union, 80-year-old Fedorenko was placed on trial by the Soviets, convicted, and executed in 1987.
In his majority opinion, Justice Kennedy said the 1980 law is different from the 1948 law that formed the basis of the high court's decision in the Fedorenko case.
"Fedorenko does not compel the same conclusion in the case now before us," he wrote.
The majority justices said the BIA wrongly relied on the Fedorenko decision as the controlling authority in the Negusie case. Instead, Kennedy said, the agency must exercise its own interpretive authority to determine the precise meaning of the 1980 Refugee Act.
"The BIA is not bound to apply the Fedorenko rule that motive and intent are irrelevant," Kennedy wrote. "Whether the statute permits such an interpretation based on a different course of reasoning must be determined in the first instance by the agency," he said.
In a concurrence and partial dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the high court should have issued a broader ruling, answering the central question in the case.
"I think it plain that the persecutor bar does not disqualify from asylum or withholding of removal an alien whose conduct was coerced or otherwise the product of duress," Justice Stevens wrote. He was joined by Justice Stephen Breyer.
In a dissenting opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas said that in writing the law Congress made no distinction of a persecutor's intent. "Because [immigration law] unambiguously precludes any inquiry into whether the persecutor acted voluntarily, i.e., free from coercion or duress, I would affirm the judgment of the court of appeals," Justice Thomas wrote.
The case is Negusie v. Holder (07-499).
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http://allafrica.com/stories/200903020720.html
AllAfrica.com
Africa: Getting the Continent on the Obama Agenda
Reed Kramer
26 February 2009
Full article is available at the above link.
Selected passage:
At the Pentagon, responsibility for sub-Saharan Africa falls under a deputy assistant secretary within the office of the Defense Secretary. Theresa Whalen, a national security specialist and career department official who has held the post since 2002, continues to serve under Secretary Robert Gates, whom Obama retained from President Bush's Cabinet.
Within the Obama camp, several names have been mentioned as her possible replacement, most prominently, Vicki Huddleston, who served as acting U.S. ambassador to Ethiopia, U.S. ambassador to Mali and Madagascar, deputy assistant secretary of state and chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana. Currently, she is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, where she worked alongside Susan Rice. Huddleston has been an outspoken advocate of a close alliance with the Ethiopian government, a policy pursued by the Bush administration but opposed by human rights organizations and some members of Congress. A November 2007 New York Times op-ed article co-authored by Huddleston and another former chief of mission at the American Embassy in Addis Ababa, Tibor Naby, criticized Congressional moves to limit U.S. military assistance for Ethiopia. "A far better approach would be to buttress Ethiopia against threats to its survival - by helping it resolve its border conflict and ensuring that it reopens negotiations with insurgents and traditional leaders and permits international investigation of reported military abuses," the two diplomats argued.
While low visibility for Africa policy may not be entirely unexpected, considering the multiple crises the President faced entering office, it has disappointed many who had hoped the administration might quickly mobilize the high level attention that is needed to spur action on vital issues. "The powerful symbolism of a son of Africa overcoming extraordinary odds to become the 44th president of the United States" may be as much of an 'Obama dividend' as Africa can expect for the moment, Witney Schneidman and Paul Collier wrote in a guest column for AllAfrica.
Schneidman, who co-chaired the Obama campaign Africa advisory group with Gavin, and Collier, an Oxford professor and author of "The Bottom Billion", cite steps that can be taken to help Africa even if Obama is unable to fulfill his pledge to double development assistance. These include "revitalizing the African Growth and Opportunity Act, working through the Millennium Challenge Corporation to improve governance and using the Overseas Private Investment Corporation to extend credit to small and medium enterprises," they wrote.
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http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE52203W20090303
Reuters
March 3, 2009
US navy hands 9 pirates to Somali authorities
U.S. forces handed over to authorities in northern Somalia on Monday nine pirates they captured after capsizing their boats at sea, a local official said.
The handcuffed men, paraded before reporters in the enclave of Puntland, are expected to appear in court this week, said Mohamed Said, Puntland's deputy police commander.
"The U.S. Navy told us they captured nine pirates on Friday and they handed them over to us this afternoon as you can see," he told reporters in the port of Bosasso.
"These pirates were captured as they were trying to hijack ships in the Gulf of Aden ... the U.S. navy capsized the pirates' boats." U.S. officials were not immediately available to comment.
Somali pirates, typically in small groups aboard speedboats, have won millions of dollars in ransom from shipowners after boarding and seizing cargo vessels. The surge in piracy has caused international alarm and warships from several countries have rushed to try to curb the hijacks.
Newly elected President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, a moderate Islamist, and his new government aim to bring peace to the chaotic Horn of Africa nation.
It has had no effective government since warlords ousted dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 then turned on each other.
Violence has killed more than 17,000 people since the start of 2007, uprooted 1 million, and caused a humanitarian crisis.
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