Somalia

Why would young Somali men living in Minnesota return to their war-ravaged homeland to wage jihad? That’s the thorny question that’s been debated by the Somali community and federal investigators since the mysterious disappearances of as many as 20 young men surfaced last year.

Rep. Keith Ellison says U.S. authorities are trying to help the missing Minnesota youth thought to be caught up with a radical Islamic faction in war-torn Somalia return to the United States. Ellison told Minnesota Public Radio that he’s been briefed on classified information about the issue.

During a forum on immigrants on Minnesota Public Radio today, Willmar Mayor Lester Heitke said he’d recently learned that the local Somali community had purchased 30 plots in the city’s public cemetery. That lead him to a conclusion:

Naval reformers think the successful rescue of Maersk Alabama captain Richard Phillips from Somali pirates may have highlighted structural imbalances in the U.S. Navy’s ability to handle irregular warfare.

Newsweek has a piece about the recent rash of Somali-American teenagers suddenly disappearing from their Minneapolis homes. The fear is that they are being recruited by radical Islamic groups to fight in their war-torn homeland. As many as 20 Somali-Americans between the ages of 17 and 27 have mysteriously vanished in the last 18 months. [...]

Burhaan Hassan was a fairly typical kid, the kind who asked his mother for $20 when he wanted to go see a movie on weekends. But on Election Day, while much of the world — including his single mother — was consumed by the historic election, the 17-year old and a handful of other Somali-American teenagers quietly boarded a plane to Kenya, en route to the front lines of a Jihad in Somalia. Law enforcement officials fear as many a dozen local boys have been lured by Islamist groups to fight.