U.S. charges 14 with giving support to Somali insurgent group

Image by roberthuffstutter via Flickr

By Greg Miller
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 6, 2010; A05

Federal authorities unsealed terrorism-related charges Thursday against 14 people accused of providing funding and recruits to a militant group in Somalia with ties to al-Qaeda, part of an expanding U.S. effort to disrupt what Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. called a "deadly pipeline" of money and fighters to al-Shabab.

It is the first time that the Justice Department has publicly revealed criminal charges against two U.S. citizens, Omar Hammami and Jehad Mostafa, who have risen through al-Shabab's ranks to become important field commanders for the organization.

The indictments were unsealed in Alabama, California and Minnesota, the latter being home to the largest Somali population in the United States.

In Minnesota, officials said, FBI agents arrested two women on Thursday on charges that included soliciting donations door-to-door for al-Shabab, which the United States designated a terrorist organization in 2008. The other 12 suspects were in Somalia or were otherwise at large.

The indictments "shed further light on a deadly pipeline that has routed funding and fighters to al-Shabab from cities across the United States," Holder said. "We are seeing an increasing number of individuals -- including U.S. citizens -- who have become captivated by extremist ideology and have taken steps to carry out terrorist objectives, either at home or abroad."

For years, al-Shabab was seen primarily as an insurgent group struggling to topple Somalia's weak government and to impose strict Islamic law. But the group's focus "has morphed over time," a senior FBI official said. Al-Shabab has attracted a growing number of foreign fighters to its camps and has demonstrated a new ability to export violence, and it has been praised by Osama bin Laden.

Last month, the group claimed responsibility for bombings in Uganda that killed at least 76 people. A State Department terrorism report released Thursday said al-Shabab and al-Qaeda "present a serious terrorist threat to American and allied interests throughout the Horn of Africa."

Holder said none of those charged is accused of plotting attacks against U.S. targets. Most are accused of sending money or signing up for a war aimed at ousting the U.S.-backed government in Mogadishu. Even so, al-Shabab's ties to al-Qaeda and its ability to tap support inside the United States have caused concern that the group could be used to carry out a domestic attack.

"What it reaffirms is that we do have a problem with domestic radicalization," said Frank J. Cilluffo, an official in the George W. Bush administration who heads the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University.

The indictments follow the arrest last month of Zachary Adam Chesser, 20, of Fairfax County, who was detained in New York while attempting to depart for Africa. Authorities said he planned to join al-Shabab.

As part of a multiyear FBI investigation, 19 people have been charged in Minnesota with supporting al-Shabab. Nine have been arrested, including five who have pleaded guilty; the others are not in custody.

But the most significant figures indicted are the two Americans who have emerged as battle-tested leaders of al-Shabab.

Hammami, 26, is a native of Alabama and a key player in al-Shabab's efforts to recruit supporters in the United States and other Western nations, officials said. Hammami, who goes by Abu Mansoor al-Amriki, or "the American," appeared in a rap-themed video this spring that attracted widespread attention online.

"He has assumed an operational role in that organization," Holder said.

Like Anwar al-Aulaqi, the Muslim cleric in Yemen tied to recent terrorist plots, Hammami is seen as a "bridge figure" who uses his familiarity with U.S. culture to appeal to Western audiences. But Aulaqi is known primarily for his radical online sermons, whereas Hammami has earned credibility as a fighter in Somalia's civil war, counterterrorism experts said.

"This guy actually has operational experience," Cilluffo said. "He is one of the top jihadi pop stars."

Mostafa, 28, is also an increasingly important figure, officials said. A U.S. citizen and former resident of San Diego, Mostafa served as a top lieutenant to Saleh Nabhan, a senior al-Qaeda and al-Shabab operative killed in a U.S. military strike last year. Since then, Mostafa "is believed to have ascended to the inner circle of al-Shabab leadership," a U.S. counterterrorism official said.

Mostafa is believed to have met Aulaqi about a decade ago in San Diego, the official said, although it is unclear whether they have remained in contact.

The only suspects taken into custody were Amina Farah Ali, 33, and Hawo Mohamed Hassan, 63, both naturalized U.S. citizens from Somalia who resided in Rochester, Minn. The two women are accused of working with counterparts in Somalia to hold conference calls with Somali natives in Minnesota, urging them to "forget about" other charities and focus on "the Jihad," according to charges filed in U.S. District Court in Minnesota.

The records indicate that the women collected more than $8,000 in donations since 2008. They routed the money to al-Shabab recipients in Somalia through "hawala" transfers widely used in Third World countries to move money and bypass traditional banks. Hassan is also accused of making false statements to the FBI; she had denied that she was involved in raising funds for al-Shabab.

Staff writer Spencer S. Hsu contributed to this report.

For Somalis caught between Islamists and weak government, fleeing is only option

Image via Wikipedia

By Sudarsan Raghavan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, April 17, 2010; A01

IFO, KENYA -- Two Islamist militants delivered an ultimatum to Zahra Allawi's daughters: marry them or die. The men were from al-Shabab, a militia linked to al-Qaeda that is fighting Somalia's U.S.-backed government. The two girls were 14 and 16.

Allawi said her neighbor in southeastern Somalia received the same command. But he swiftly married off his daughter to someone else. The next day, the fighters returned with a butcher's knife.

"They slaughtered him like a goat," she recalled.

Three hours later, she and her 10 children fled. After handing their life savings of $300 to a smuggler, they crossed into northeastern Kenya last month, joining tens of thousands of Somalis in this sprawling refugee settlement. They are the human fallout from Africa's most notorious failed state, haunted by unending conflict and a quiet U.S. counterterrorism campaign.

About 2 million Somalis, roughly one-fifth of the population, have sought refuge in other parts of their country or in neighboring countries, most of them since 2007, when the fighting intensified. Nearly 170,000 have fled this year alone, according to U.N. officials, arriving in desolate camps inside and outside Somalia with barely anything except the clothes on their backs.

Many are running from al-Shabab's radical dictates and increasing savagery, as well as fears of a major government offensive.

This article is based on more than 60 interviews conducted in Somali refugee communities in Kenya and Yemen. The refugees' stories of life under al-Shabab could not be independently verified, but community leaders, refugee officials and human rights groups as well as al-Shabab spokesmen gave similar accounts of recent events in Somalia.

Allawi had plenty of reasons to flee. Al-Shabab fighters, she said, once whipped her for not attending midday prayers at the mosque. Last month, she was forced to prove that the man she was walking with was her husband.

An al-Shabab commander also sought to recruit two of Allawi's sons, ages 10 and 13. Allawi begged him not to take them. In exchange, he forced her to buy three weapons for his force.

"If they could all afford to come, not a single person would remain in Somalia," said Allawi, 37, seated with her children on the reddish, sunbaked earth a day after they arrived. "There is no freedom in Somalia, only death."

Instability since 1991

War has gripped Somalia since 1991, when the collapse of President Mohamed Siad Barre's regime plunged the country into lawlessness and clan fighting. Two years later, mobs dragged the bodies of U.S. soldiers through Mogadishu, the capital, during a U.N. peacekeeping mission, an event later depicted in the movie "Black Hawk Down."

The country has vexed U.S. policymakers, who fear that Somalia could become the next Afghanistan. In December 2006, the George W. Bush administration indirectly backed an Ethiopian invasion to overthrow the Islamists, who had risen up against Somalia's secular warlords.

But within two years, the Islamists returned, more radicalized and led by al-Shabab, which in Arabic means "The Youth." The Obama administration and European nations are backing the Somali government with arms, training, logistics and intelligence.

Yet al-Shabab, which the United States has labeled a terrorist organization, now controls large swaths of Somalia. It has imposed Taliban-like Islamic codes in a region where moderate Islam was once widely practiced. Urged on by Osama bin Laden, the group has steadily pushed into Mogadishu, importing foreign fighters and triggering U.S. concerns that the movement could spread to Yemen, across East Africa and beyond. Somalia's government controls only a few blocks of Mogadishu and has little legitimacy elsewhere.

Many Somalis say they believe the United States is guiding the war.

"We expect American helicopters to strike Mogadishu at any moment," said Aslia Hassan, 40, who arrived at this refugee settlement three days ago with two small plastic bags of possessions. "This is why we are running."

Al-Shabab's dictates

The refugees say they are also escaping al-Shabab's puritanical dictates. Western and Somali music is outlawed in the areas the group controls in southern and central Somalia. Movie theaters have been shuttered, and the watching of films on DVDs is prohibited. In some areas, the refugees say, playing soccer -- and even watching it on television -- is banned. So is storing pictures on cellphones and using Western-sounding ringtones. Only Koranic music is allowed.

Al-Shabab's religious police, often led by children, order people to put out cigarettes and give haircuts at gunpoint to anyone with modern hairstyles or longish hair, the refugees say. As a warning to those who defy their dictates, al-Shabab fighters have displayed severed heads on steel poles.

Women must sheath themselves from head to toe in abayas made of thick cloth and are not allowed to wear bras. In Mogadishu, buses are segregated, with women sitting in the back.

"Even if a pregnant woman asks to sit in the front of the bus, where it is less bumpy, she will be refused," said Dahaba Duko Ali, 35.

She arrived here last month with her seven children, evading al-Shabab checkpoints. Fearing the police -- Kenya has closed its border with Somalia -- the smugglers drove along back roads and dropped the family just over the border. Under cover of night, Ali and her children walked 30 miles to Ifo.

Ali Mohamud Raghe, an al-Shabab spokesman, said that "our Islamic religion tells us" to separate men from women and for women to wear thick abayas. The militia forbids all "the evil things that infidels aim to spread" among young Muslim Somalis.

"So music is among the evil actions," he said in a telephone interview.

Even donkeys are not beyond al-Shabab's dictates. The militia has decreed that donkeys cannot wear harnesses, nor can they carry more than six sacks. They are also segregated: Women can use only female donkeys; men must use male ones. "How can I feed my children?" lamented Hassan Ali Ibrahim, 40, a gaunt donkey-cart driver who arrived in Yemen with his eight children.

Savage methods

On a Friday in October, the Ibrahim brothers -- Sayeed and Osman -- were taken from their prison cell in the coastal Somali town of Kismaayo. An al-Shabab court had convicted them of robbery, they said, adding that their imprisonment was politically motivated.

The brothers and a third inmate were driven in a minibus to a field in front of a police station. A crowd of 4,000 had gathered. Ten masked men stood in the field; one held a microphone and another clutched a knife, the brothers recalled.

The third inmate, in his early 20s, was taken out of the van. Several of the masked men held him down and his foot was chopped off above the ankle, the brothers recalled.

It took five minutes.

"God is great," chanted the fighters, drowning out the screams.

Minutes later, the brothers were taken out of the van. Sayeed looked away as his brother's leg was sliced off.

"I felt powerless," Sayeed said. "I wanted a miracle to happen."

A voice over the loudspeaker announced that Sayeed's right hand and left leg were to be amputated. By the time his limbs were hacked off, he had passed out. He woke up in a hospital. After 10 days, the brothers fled Kismaayo. In February, relatives hid them inside a crowded minibus and smuggled them into Kenya.

"What they did to us has nothing to do with Islam," said Osman, as he struggled to get up from a chair with his crutches.

But Mohammed Muse Gouled, 70, said al-Shabab had helped bring stability. For years, he said, warlords contested for power and territory, and chaos and insecurity grew. "No one can harm you under the Shabab," said Gouled, adding that he fled shelling by the regional African Union peacekeeping force.

One woman's journey

Habiba Abdi, 19, was five months pregnant and unmarried. Under the dictates of al-Shabab, she would have faced death by stoning. Fighters entered her neighborhood in Kismaayo, searching for the woman with the "illegal child."

She hid with relatives. Four days later, she begged a smuggler to take her to Kenya. A few months later, she had a baby girl. She named her Sabreen, which means "tolerance."

They live here with a cousin. Other refugees taunt her as the "one who broke the law of Islam." Some call her dhilo, or whore.

But she is more worried about al-Shabab. Last year, fighters from the militia crossed into Kenya and abducted three aid workers and a Somali cleric; last week, the group raided a Kenyan border town.

"Sometimes, I prefer to die," said Abdi, as she cradled Sabreen in her arms.

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BBC News - Kenya denies links to Somalia's al-Shabab

Image by alles-schlumpf via Flickr

BBC News - Kenya denies links to Somalia's al-Shabab

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Somalia: Why the Haven for Extremists is Back in the News

Image by Australian War Memorial collection via Flickr

By Alex Perry / Nairobi

On the night of Sept. 21 last year, U.S. diplomatic staff in South Africa were telephoned at home and told not to go to work the next day. A State Department official refused to explain the warning, but a Western intelligence officer in Africa told TIME the alarm was raised after a phone call from an al-Qaeda operative to a number in Cape Town was intercepted — a call in which an attack on U.S. government buildings in South Africa was discussed. No attack took place, and after three days, the embassy in Pretoria and three consulates reopened. But with South Africa expecting half a million fans for the soccer World Cup this June and July, security officials are understandably jittery. Especially because of the origin of the phone call. It came, TIME was told, from Somalia. (See pictures of South Africa preparing for the World Cup.)

Somalia is much on the minds of those fighting terrorism these days. On Feb. 1, Sheik Fuad Mohamed Shangole, a leader of an Islamist group known as al-Shabab (the Youth), which is fighting for control of the nation on the Horn of Africa, made a public declaration of allegiance to Osama bin Laden. If that summons memories of the old relationship between the Afghan Taliban and bin Laden, it should. Both Somalia and Afghanistan have been at war for more than a generation. Both wars have followed a similar progression: a toppling of the central government that was followed by years of warlord feuding (18 U.S. soldiers died protecting a U.N. mission in Mogadishu in 1993, an episode that later became the subject of the book and film Black Hawk Down) and then the rise of a movement — the Taliban in Afghanistan, al-Shabab in Somalia — that proposed an extremist vision of Islam as a solution to the lawlessness. The two countries are both poor and populated mostly, it can often seem, by men with a uniform taste for beards, AK-47s and pickup trucks. (See what the U.S. Army can learn from Black Hawk Down.)

For years, when it came to host countries, al-Qaeda seemed to prefer the inaccessible mountains of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to Somalia's flat, open scrub. The handful of jihadis based in Somalia staged international attacks: in August 1998, they killed 224 people in twin bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and in November 2002, 13 people died after a car-bomb attack on an Israeli-owned hotel on Kenya's coast. But they attempted nothing on the scale of Sept. 11. Now there is a fear that their ambitions may be rising. The worry over Somalia also has a regional dimension: just across the Gulf of Aden is Yemen, long a staging ground for al-Qaeda attacks and the place where Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian who tried to blow up a flight to Detroit on Christmas Day, is thought to have been trained. (See pictures of a jihadist's journey.)

Al-Shabab's Long Reach
If Somalia's extremists are becoming an international threat, that's partly because of their cosmopolitan leadership. One sure result of war is refugees, and decades of fighting in Somalia have seen the rapid growth of a large Somali diaspora in places from Cape Town to Minneapolis. But not all who have been forced to make new lives far away from Africa have done so easily. The past few years have seen the arrival in Somalia of 200 to 300 young ethnic Somali men from the U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia, Norway and Sweden, migrants' children returning to their ancestral homeland, according to diplomatic and intelligence sources in East Africa. A Western soldier working in Somalia says these foreign-born Somalis now dominate al-Shabab. "All their cells are commanded by a foreigner," he says. "All tactical and strategic decisions are taken by foreigners."

To extend their reach overseas, al-Shabab's leaders in Somalia are thought to circle back to the diaspora, looking for those who can be recruited to extremism. The FBI is tracking more than a dozen Somali Americans who disappeared from their homes and are suspected of joining al-Shabab, and in November, 14 Minnesota men with connections to Somalia were charged with offenses like aiding a terrorist organization; four have pleaded guilty. In August, Australian police arrested five men from the Somali community in Melbourne on suspicion of plotting to attack an army barracks outside Sydney. The September call to Cape Town was picked up because a group of ethnic Somalis in the city were already under surveillance on suspicion of raising funds for al-Shabab, according to the intelligence officer. "If you've been waiting for a moment to declare Somalia a priority threat, what else do you need?" asks the Western soldier in Somalia. "There's no longer a serious risk that southern Somalia could become a jihadi operational deployment facility. It already is."

So how to respond? In Somalia, authority is notionally held by the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), led by an Islamist who preaches pragmatic engagement with the West. The TFG was installed by Ethiopia, a principal U.S. ally in Africa, after its forces invaded Somalia in 2006 and toppled an earlier Islamist government whose more extreme members had unwisely declared jihad on Somalia's bigger and more Christian neighbor to the west. But many members of the TFG seem to effectively live in Nairobi. (Exceptions include President Sheik Sharif Ahmed and his Defense Minister, Yusuf Mohamed Siad, a veteran warlord who survived an assassination attempt by suicide bomb in Mogadishu on Feb. 15.) Despite the protection of 5,300 African Union (A.U.) troops — mainly Ugandans and Burundians — the TFG in reality controls little more than a few blocks of Mogadishu. "To defeat the Shabab," says the intelligence officer, "you need a functioning government. That's exactly what they lack." (See more about the Somalia.)

From outside Africa, the response has been patchy. There is some financial assistance, much of it from the U.S. (The A.U. peacekeepers have cost $160 million so far.) In 2007, the U.S. sent special-operations teams in with the Ethiopians and — says Abdirashid Mohamed Hiddig, a Somali Member of Parliament who assisted the Americans — captured 10 to 20 foreign fighters. Since then, according to Pentagon spokesmen, the U.S. has carried out at least six aerial attacks inside Somalia, killing al-Shabab leader Aden Hashi Farah Ayro, who was hit by a missile in May 2008, and Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, the mastermind of the 2002 attack in Kenya, who was killed by U.S. helicopter gunships last September. The U.S. has had no military support from other nations, although some have made contributions to help deal with Somalia's long humanitarian crisis. Only piracy and the threat it poses to world trade have resulted in concerted international muscle. An armada of warships from more than 20 countries now hunts pirates and escorts convoys of merchant vessels in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. (See pictures of the brazen pirates of Somalia.)

All that said, the threat from Somalia needs to be kept in perspective. Al-Shabab is far smaller than the Taliban. "There are bigger gangs in L.A.," says the intelligence officer. It is prone to factionalism and has found it hard to garner support among ordinary Somalis. The U.N. has reported that al-Shabab receives funds and weapons from the Middle East and the Eritrean government. (Al-Shabab fights Ethiopia, and Ethiopia is Eritrea's archenemy.) But that support is small compared with the assistance that extremist groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan have received from radical Islamists around the world. Finally, the risk that Somalia could ignite a wider conflagration across the Horn of Africa — sucking in Ethiopia, Eritrea and even Kenya — is real but, again, nothing like the one in Afghanistan's neighborhood. As U.S. ambassador to Kenya Michael Ranneberger never tires of pointing out, none of Somalia's neighbors are nuclear powers. "We are a little wary of the comparisons," he says.

But in the asymmetrical calculations of terrorism, small numbers aren't the key; determination to do damage is. As Ranneberger concedes, no change in Somalia means "further deterioration." Increasingly bold ways of dealing with al-Shabab are being considered. The A.U. peacekeeping force is being expanded, with the hope of creating a "green zone" in Mogadishu. Hundreds of al-Shabab fighters have been pouring into Mogadishu recently in anticipation of a rumored TFG offensive. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has gone further, proposing invading Somalia, occupying the southern port of Kismayu and using it to take the fight to al-Shabab. Memories of the disastrous intervention in 1993 remain sharp, so that is not a proposal that seems likely ever to gain much U.S. support. But it is a measure of the increasing anxiety that Somalia inspires that it is still on the table.

Somalis fleeing to Yemen prompt new worries in fight against al-Qaeda

Image by Remolacha.net pics via Flickr

By Sudarsan Raghavan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, January 12, 2010; A01

KHARAZ, YEMEN -- Thousands of Somali boys and teenagers fleeing war and chaos at home are sailing to Yemen, where officials who have long welcomed Somali refugees now worry that the new arrivals could become the next generation of al-Qaeda fighters.

As the United States deepens its counterterrorism operations in Yemen, officials are concerned that extremists could find growing Somali refugee camps fertile ground for recruiting. U.S. and Yemeni authorities also fear that Islamist fighters from Somalia could slip into the country among the throngs of refugees, deepening ties between al-Qaeda leaders in Yemen and the particularly hard-line militants of Somalia.

Fleeing a failed state for a failing one, the Somali youths arrive daily in this refugee outpost, which is filled with rickety tents and tales of misery, in the vast desert of southern Yemen. They bring stories of brutality and forced conscription by al-Shabab, an Islamist force battling Somalia's U.S.-backed transitional government.

"They ordered us to fight the nonbelievers," said Abdul Khadr Salot, 19, a burly ex-fighter with a thin scar across his cheek who escaped from a militant training camp. "Even if your father tells you to leave the Shabab, you must kill him."

Image by Monica's Dad via Flickr

But this longtime haven is becoming increasingly inhospitable since the United States bolstered its operations here, largely in response to the Yemeni al-Qaeda connections of the Nigerian man who allegedly tried to bomb a U.S. airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day, and to the links of an extremist Yemeni American cleric to the Nov. 5 shootings at Fort Hood, Tex.

Yemen's fragile government fears that Somali fighters from al-Shabab will swell the ranks of Yemen's Islamist militants at a time when links between the Somali group and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula are growing, according to Yemeni officials and analysts.

As it quietly wages war against extremists in the Arabian Peninsula and parts of Africa, the Obama administration could find itself confronting a unified, regional al-Qaeda on two continents. This would further stretch U.S. resources as Washington fights major conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. It could also push Yemen -- beset by mounting internal strife, poor governance, extreme poverty and dwindling resources -- even deeper into a downward spiral.

"Somalia for Yemen is becoming like what Pakistan is for Afghanistan," said Saeed Obaid, a Yemeni terrorism expert who wrote a book on al-Qaeda's Yemen affiliate.

Leaders of al-Shabab, which the United States has labeled a terrorist organization with links to al-Qaeda's central body, said last week that they will send fighters to help al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. That prompted Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi to issue a stern warning through the state-run Saba news agency that Yemen will not allow "any terrorist elements from any country to operate in its territory."

In recent days, Yemeni security forces have staged raids on Somali refugee communities, detaining suspected loyalists of al-Shabab, which means "The Youth." Overnight, an atmosphere of fear has gripped the community, which numbers more than 1 million.

"The climate has changed, and it is heating up," Mohammed Ali, a top leader of the Somali community in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, lamented over a glass of Somali coffee.

An estimated 74,000 African refugees, mostly from Somalia and Ethiopia, arrived in Yemen last year, 50 percent more than in 2008, according to statistics from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. UNHCR officials say 309 either drowned in capsized boats or were killed by smugglers.

Forced recruitment

In September, a gang of al-Shabab fighters grabbed 14-year-old Saber Ahmed at his father's shop in Mogadishu, the Somali capital.

They blindfolded him and took him to a nearby militia base, he said. There, they brought out recruits he knew from his neighborhood, who urged him to join. The peer pressure didn't work. Then, an al-Shabab commander gave him an ultimatum.

"He said, 'We will kill you if you don't join us,' " recalled Ahmed, tall and lanky with a soft voice and chiseled face.

After 20 days of training, he was sent to the front lines. Within hours, he said, a battle erupted; Ahmed was shot in the leg. He managed to crawl to his house. His father took him to a hospital. When Ahmed regained consciousness, his father gave him $100 and ordered him to flee to Yemen.

In the Somali port of Bossaso, he handed the money to a smuggler, who placed him on a crowded boat headed for a treacherous sea. As the boat neared Yemen, it flipped over. Ahmed swam nearly a mile to the shore. He later learned that seven passengers had drowned.

Ahmed's experience is a familiar one, according to Somali community leaders and officials at the UNHCR, which runs the camp here in Kharaz. Parents often say they bring their children to Yemen to prevent them from one day joining al-Shabab. "It's very easy to brainwash youth. They tell them, 'We'll give you money. We'll give you power,' " said Rocco Nuri, a UNHCR official in Aden.

When told that former al-Shabab fighters were in Kharaz, Nuri expressed concern but said it was "impossible to monitor this" in an open camp where residents come and go freely. Nevertheless, he expressed confidence that the camp is not a haven or recruiting hub for Somali militants.

In Yemen, Somalis are worse off than Yemenis. Jobs are scarce. Thousands of Somali youths eke out a living washing cars. They sleep under trees and bathe in public water tanks. Most Somali refugees view Yemen as a transit point to richer nations such as Saudi Arabia. But in recent months, a war between the Yemeni government and Shiite Hawthi rebels in the north has stemmed the migration.

Salafist schools, which teach a puritanical brand of Islam, have attracted several hundred young Somali refugees with offers of free food and lodging, said Somali community leaders. They fear some could join al-Shabab.

"Some boys did return back to Somalia," said Deka Muhamed, a Somali elder in Sanaa. "We've heard they've been killed, but we don't know how or why."

Yemeni officials, meanwhile, worry that al-Qaeda could lure Somali ex-fighters into their ranks with promises of money or aid. But so far, there has been no evidence of this, say Western diplomats and Yemeni officials.

In an audiotape last year, Osama bin Laden exhorted al-Shabab to overthrow the Somali government. Radical Yemeni American cleric Anwar al-Aulaqi, whom the United States has linked to the suspect in the attempted Christmas Day bombing and to the gunman charged in the massacre at Fort Hood, has also expressed support for al-Shabab.

Yemeni officials and analysts say there is regular communication between al-Qaeda militants in Yemen and al-Shabab. Last week, Somalia's state minister for defense declared that Yemeni militants had sent al-Shabab two boats filled with arms. They have also traveled to Somalia to fight.

"Some elements went to Somalia. Some were killed there," said Rashad al-Alimi, Yemen's deputy prime minister for security and defense.

Foreign Minister Qirbi, in an interview before the failed Christmas Day attack, urged Western nations to provide greater support for Yemen's coast guard to protect its shores from militants entering or leaving. "We also need better surveillance of refugees in the country," he said.

'All become suspects'

Many Somali refugees refuse to leave their houses at night, fearing they will be picked up in a security sweep. "Nobody carries a Shabab I.D. It's not written on our foreheads," said Ali, the community leader. "We have all become suspects."

Most Somalis, he noted, practice a moderate form of Islam that stresses tolerance.

At the Somali Refugee Council office in Sanaa, more than 20 refugees have reported losing their jobs in the past week, said Mohamed Abdi Gabobe, its chairman. The council, he said, is planning a demonstration to show solidarity with Yemen, in the hopes that this will lessen the pressure on the community.

But many refugees are worried about their futures. They say they have become the latest victims in the U.S. counterterrorism campaign.

"When two elephants fight each other, it is always the grass that is destroyed," said Sadat Mohamed Yusuf, a Somali community leader. "We are the grass."

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Al-Shabab Militants Divided over Tactics, Foreign Control

A rising dispute between militants in Somalia may have split the country's al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab group into two factions. Reports say the suicide bombing at a Mogadishu hotel earlier this month deepened divisions between an al-Shabab leader closely aligned with foreigners and another opposed to foreigners dictating the group's agenda.

Alisha Ryu | Nairobi 22 December 2009

Photo: AFP

Somali man is carried away from scene of suicide bomb attack during university student graduation ceremony at a local hotel in Mogadishu, 3 Dec 2009

Reports say a dispute has been simmering for months between the Mogadishu-based ultra-hardline al-Shabab leader Ahmed Abdi Godane, also known as Abu Zubayr, and Muktar Robow Abu Mansour, a leader based in the Bay region, southwest of Mogadishu.

Godane, who came to power after the death of al-Shabab founder Aden Hashi Ayro in a U.S. missile strike in May 2008, is firmly committed to the idea of using al-Qaida-trained foreign fighters to help al-Shabab violently overthrow Somalia's U.N.-backed transitional government and establish an Islamic caliphate in Somalia. Robow is reported to be in favor of engaging in talks with al-Shabab rivals and maintaining a popular backing for the militant group.

International Crisis Group, Horn of Africa analyst Rashid Abdi says al-Shabab has a decentralized leadership structure that has been vulnerable to dissent.

"It has serious trouble in the sense that those who are wedded to the idea of a permanent global jihad with Somalia as a staging post are now in the driver's seat," he said. "Foreign jihadis are the ones who are calling the shots. They are the ones who are behind the waves of suicide bombings, which have caused horrific civilian casualties. And increasingly, they are alienating those people who have a local agenda."

The exact number of foreigners in Somalia is not known. But in June, the president of Somalia's transitional federal government, Sharif Sheik Ahmed, said hundreds had arrived in the country to support al-Shabab. According to VOA sources in Somalia, many foreigners are based at al-Shabab training camps in the towns of Marka, Barawe, and Kismayo, teaching thousands of recruits bomb-making skills and guerrilla fighting tactics.

Officials in Somalia say one of these recruits, a Somali man who had grown up in Denmark, carried out the December 3 suicide bombing at a graduation ceremony for medical students attended by several government ministers. The blast killed four ministers, but also killed and wounded at least 60 bystanders.

Amid a public outcry, al-Shabab's Mogadishu-based spokesman Ali Mohamed Rage denied his group had carried out the bombing. The denial prompted some observers to speculate that foreign al-Shabab commanders may have planned the mission without consulting some of their key Somali counterparts or receiving their endorsement.

Rashid Abdi says the bombing has convinced many ordinary Somalis that al-Shabab is increasingly being controlled by foreign fighters, who have no regard for Somali lives.

Abdi says that public perception could now give Somalia's beleaguered president an opportunity to erase the humiliation his government suffered six months ago, when it was forced to beg for troops from neighboring countries to keep the government from being toppled.

"We have to be cautious. Anger against al-Shabab does not necessarily translate into support for Sharif. But Sharif has to get out there and try to regain the political territory lost to al-Shabab," he added.

On Monday, President Sharif attended the opening session of the Somali transitional parliament in Mogadishu, dressed in a military uniform. He said the time had come to re-take the country from al-Shabab and urged parliament members and Somali citizens to assist the government in efforts to defeat the militants.

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VOA News - Al-Shabab Militants Threaten Kenya for Recruiting Allegations

By Alisha Ryu Nairobi 12 October 2009

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Somalia's al-Shabab extremists have renewed their threat to launch attacks on Kenya. This time, the threat follows allegations the Kenyan government is recruiting ethnic Somalis in northeastern Kenya to fight al-Shabab in Somalia.

Ethnic Somalis in the Kenyan town of Garissa are telling reporters Kenyan authorities have recruited as many as 200 teen-aged boys there in recent weeks. The boys are allegedly being trained at a military camp in the coastal city of Mombasa.

Garissa resident Haile Mohamed Yusuf says her 18-year-old son believed he was going to be trained to join the Kenyan police when he left Garissa for Mombasa. She says there has been no word from her son since.

In neighboring Somalia, al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab militants, who control vast areas of the country, are using such reports to denounce what they say is a secret campaign by the Kenyan government to send Somali-Kenyan soldiers to Somalia to fight against them.

Al-Shabab's chief spokesman, Ali Mohamud Rage, alleges recruits are being trained in preparation for an assault on al-Shabab controlled towns in Middle and Lower Juba regions.

Rage says if the Kenyan government does not cease recruiting and training ethnic Somalis, al-Shabab will begin attacking inside Kenya.

Al-Shabab, listed as a terrorist organization by the United States, is currently battling to overthrow the Western-backed government in the Somali capital Mogadishu and to gain full control of the country. Since it emerged in 2004, the group has been strengthening ties with al-Qaida and affiliated groups.

For months, Kenya's under-developed northeastern region, inhabited mostly by ethnic Somalis, had been the focus of efforts by al-Shabab to influence and recruit young men from Kenya.

In August, al-Shabab fighters stormed a school in the town of Mandera, ordering students to quit school and join the war against the "enemies of Islam" in Somalia. Some Kenyans have testified that they were offered as much as $650 from al-Shabab militants to go fight in Somalia.

The Kenyan government has not commented on allegations it is recruiting young men in the area. But Kenya's chief police spokesman, Eric Kiraithe, tells VOA that the country's security forces are prepared to deal with any al-Shabab threat.

"We have not seen the statement and certainly the matter will be investigated," said Kiraithe. [But] we have the capacity to protect the republic [in] every possible way."

In July, Somalia's embattled government appealed for neighboring countries, including Kenya, to send troops to Somalia to intervene in the conflict. Al-Shabab warned Kenya that if any Kenyan soldier is found across the border in Somalia, the group would send suicide bombers into the Kenyan capital.

Eritrea Rebuffs 'Smear Campaign'

Eritrea has strongly denied allegations that it supports Islamist insurgents in neighbouring Somalia.

Salih Omar Abdu, its ambassador to Kenya, says the accusations, repeatedly made by the US and the African Union, are a "smear campaign".

He says Eritrea is in favour of a united Somalia whose government represents all of its people.

Somalia is nominally ruled by a UN-backed government but insurgents control large parts of the country.

Last week US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on a visit to Africa, warned that the US would "take action" against Eritrea if it continued to support the militants.

She said Eritrea was destabilising Somalia and its actions were "unacceptable".

Moral obligation

But in an interview with the BBC's Network Africa programme, Mr Abdu dismissed the claims.

"This is a smear campaign against Eritrea under the pretext that Eritrea supplies arms, ammunitions and finances [to insurgents]," he said.

"But unfortunately this is not the case and Eritrea does not tolerate being an instrument to any country or any government."

He said his country had a "moral and legal obligation to support the Somalis", but had no right to "bring or establish a government for the Somalis".

"We believe in a united Somalia. Not like our neighbours who want to sub-divide it into cantons. Let the Somalis solve their problems themselves."

Analysts say several militant groups operated from Eritrea after being ousted from the Somali capital, Mogadishu, when Ethiopian troops entered Somalia in 2006.

The main insurgent group is al-Shabab, which is extending its influence in the south of the country.

About 250,000 Somalis have fled their homes in fighting between militants and government forces over the past three months.

There are growing fears that Somalia - which has been without an effective central government since 1991 - risks becoming a haven for terrorists.

Clinton's Visit to Somalia Gives New Meaning to 'Handshake Diplomacy'

By Stephanie McCrummen
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, August 6, 2009

NAIROBI, Aug. 5 -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Somali President Sharif Ahmed are expected to discuss weighty security issues when they meet in this city Thursday. But many Somalis will be paying close attention to a more delicate, but highly symbolic, matter of diplomacy: whether the two will shake hands.

"The talk is everywhere," said Abdirhaman Mumin, a Somali sugar exporter who is hoping for the handshake. "Will he or won't he? For many people, whether he's loyal to Islam or not depends on the handshake."

Somalia is a traditionally moderate Muslim country. Music and poetry are treasured, and handshaking between men and women -- taboo according to some conservative readings of Islam -- has long been considered normal. But since the collapse of the last central government in 1991, a more conservative strain of Islam has taken hold, with Somalis depending more on Islamic law to establish order.

Ahmed, a former geography teacher and Islamic scholar, was the widely respected leader of a movement of Islamist courts that briefly took power in 2006 and imposed a more strict interpretation of Islamic law. The movement was soon ousted in a U.S.-backed Ethiopian invasion fueled by accusations that the movement's military wing, known as al-Shabab, had ties to al-Qaeda.

These days, a more resolutely moderate Ahmed is back in power and battling the Shabab, which broke with him and now controls much of southern Somalia.

Increasingly, though, its members are rebels without a cause. They lost one of their main battle cries when the Ethiopian army withdrew from Somalia. They lost another recently, when Ahmed heeded a popular call and adopted Islamic law for the country. And so, at the moment, the Shabab is relying heavily on portraying Ahmed as an "impure" Muslim, a puppet of the West, a turncoat.

Last week, pro-Shabab Web sites were speculating about a possible shake between Ahmed and Clinton, arguing that, were it to come to fruition, it would prove that Ahmed had lost credibility with Islamists. Some Somalis have argued that Sharif should refrain from pressing palms, if only to keep the Shabab from scoring a public relations victory.

"If they shake hands, they'll definitely use it as propaganda," said one Somali analyst who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the Shabab is known to target critics.

But in recent interviews with Somali exiles -- a generally moderate bunch -- most said they are in favor of the handshake, a view that reflects their cautious optimism about U.S. support for Ahmed, usually referred to as Sheikh Sharif. The United States recently shipped 40 tons of ammunition to help the government fight the rebels.

The pro-shake crowd also reflects a deep-seated desire among many Somalis to shed their image as citizens of one of the most dysfunctional and anarchic countries in the world.

"I think it's good for him to shake hands," said Abdi Ibrahim, who was discussing the issue with friends at a cafe in Nairobi's bustling Eastleigh neighborhood. "Sheikh Sharif has to show Somalis that this is normal. Everyone shakes hands. Why should Somalis be different? Why the big deal? We need to join the world."

"But," he added somewhat gloomily, "the insurgents will use it to say he has changed a lot -- maybe he shouldn't. I cannot say 100 percent."

The former spokesman for the ousted Islamist courts movement, Abdirahim Issa Addou, said that in his view, Sharif is no longer interested in appeasing the Shabab and that "we need to show the Americans we're different."

Following that line of reasoning, he said, Sharif should not just offer Clinton a hearty handshake. "To me, I'd go as far as kissing her," Addou joked. "But really, Sheikh Sharif is in a difficult position. "You know," he said with a sigh, "that Sharif has a lot of problems."

Australia Detains Terror Suspects

Australian police have arrested four people in the city of Melbourne after uncovering what they say was a plot to launch a suicide attack.

The group was planning to carry out the attack on an army base, police said.

More than 400 officers were involved in searching 19 properties across the city before dawn on Tuesday.

The suspects are Australian nationals of Somali and Lebanese descent; one man, aged 25, has been charged with conspiring to plan a terrorist act.

Nayaf El Sayed, from the Glenroy district of Melbourne, was remanded in custody until 26 October.

He did not enter a plea or apply for bail, and refused to stand for the magistrate in court.

His lawyer told the hearing: "He believes he should not stand for any man except God."

Police were granted extra time to question three others - Saney Aweys, Yacqub Khayre and Abdirahman Ahmed.

A fifth man, who had been detained earlier, was also being questioned about the alleged plot.

'Sobering'

"Police believe members of a Melbourne-based group have been undertaking planning to carry out a terrorist attack in Australia and [are] allegedly involved in hostilities in Somalia," a police statement said.

"The men's intention was to actually go into the army barracks and to kill as many soldiers as they could before they themselves were killed," said Tony Negus, acting chief commissioner of the Australian Federal Police.

Holsworthy Barracks on the outskirts of Sydney was one of the planned targets, according to police.

The attack would have been the most serious terrorist attack on Australian soil, Mr Negus added.

"Members of the group have been actively seeking a fatwa or religious ruling to justify a terror attack on Australia," he said.

Prosecutors told the court they had evidence some of the men had taken part in training and fighting in Somalia.

They also said there were phone conversations, text messages and surveillance footage, including footage of one of the suspects outside the Holsworthy army base, linking the suspects to an alleged attack.

The court heard the men planned to seek a fatwa, or religious ruling, to support an attack on the Holsworthy army base.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said: "The sobering element of today's development is the reminder to all Australians that the threat of terrorism is alive and well, and this requires continued vigilance on the part of our security authorities."

The country's security level is unchanged at medium, where it has been since 2003.

The police said the raids followed a seven-month operation involving several state and federal agencies.

Police believe those arrested are linked to the Somali-based al-Shabab group, which seeks to overthrow the weak UN-backed Somali government and is believed to have links to al-Qaeda.