The al Shabaab hostage standoff at the Westgate mall in Nairobi is now in its third day. The death toll is 68, with 175 injured, and a number of hostages are still being held by jihadis. The Somali terror group that stormed the Kenyan mall has a larger U.S. contingent than any other al Qaeda offshoot, said U.S. officials, and is more prone to mount deadly attacks on targets outside Somalia. Al Shabaab has claimed that six of the jihadis holding hostages at Nairobi’s Westgate mall are Americans, and provided names for what it said were individuals from Minneapolis, Kansas City, Maine, Illinois and Arizona. “Our rough estimate of U.S. passport holders in al Shabaab is about 20,” a U.S. official said. “And in terms of where they are in the hierarchy, there are some Americans who are military commanders. These are guys we know about, guys we have full IDs on, but there are U.S. citizens we didn’t track.” Foreign nationals killed fighting for al Shabaab included at least 10 Minnesotans. American members of al Shabaab carried out three suicide bombings in Somalia between 2008 and 2011. The U.S. fighters were recruited in American cities with large concentrations of Somalis, particularly Minneapolis-St. Paul, where as many as 90,000 Somalis live, the highest concentration outside the home country. Much of the early recruiting was done at a single mosque in Minneapolis, more often by peer to peer than by a single recruiter. While non-Somali recruits from around the world were usually fighting for Islam, said an official, the ethnic Somalis were also susceptible to a nationalistic appeal. They were urged to come home to fight the armies of Somalia’s neighbors, including Ethiopians, an ancient enemy. “The pitch is, ‘your father fought against the Ethiopians. What are you doing?’” investigations.nbcnews/_news/2013/09/23/20660841-somali-terror-group-has-20-american-members-prone-to-strike-outside-somalia?lite>1=43001
Posted on: Wed, 25 Sep 2013 15:05:58 +0000
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