Life Behind Enemy Lines—in Somalia
As Declassified noted last weekend, a recent FBI affidavit in a big Chicago terror case offered an unusually revealing glimpse of life behind “enemy lines” in Waziristan in northwest Pakistan.
ON Monday, the FBI provided an equally eye-opening look at the scene inside another jihadi stronghold, this one in the war ravaged nation of Somalia (which U.S. officials increasingly fear is becoming a haven for Al Qaeda). In the process, the bureau shed new light on how one Somali American from Minneapolis ended up losing his life in Somalia —as a suicide bomber.
Earlier this year NEWSWEEK reported on the FBI’s concern about the strange case of young Somali Americans who were disappearing from their communities in Minneapolis and elsewhere in the United States only to reemerge fighting in Somalia on behalf of Al- Shabab, a militant terror group closely aligned with Al Qaeda. As part of its charges unveiled this week against eight defendants accused of providing material support to Al-Shabab, the Justice Department unsealed an FBI affidavit recounting the experiences of one such man—an unnamed confidential informant from the Minneapolis area who has pled guilty and is now assisting the FBI. The informant described how he was among a group of four men who flew from Minneapolis in late 2007 and wound up at an Al-Shabab training camp. The training camp was attended by “dozens” of other young Somalis from Africa, Europe, and the United States, the affidavit states. Somali, Arab, and “Western” instructors were there to train the students in “small arms, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, and military style tactics.” The instructors also “indoctrinated” the students with “anti-Ethiopian, anti-American, anti-Israeli and anti-Western beliefs,” the affidavit states.
One of the young men who attended the training camp with the confidential informant was a naturalized U.S. citizen named Shirwa Ahmed (who, after leaving Minneapolis that year, had first flown to Mecca for the Haj before traveling to Somalia). After departing the training camp, Ahmed later took part in an armed ambush of Ethiopian troops fighting to rid the country of the Islamic insurgents and restore its legitimate government. Ten months later, on October 29, 2008, Ahmed participated in an even bigger action: driving a truck with an improvised explosive device. (It was among five suicide-bombing attacks orchestrated by Al-Shabab that same day, killing 22 people.) Recovered in the rubble at the bomb site was a finger that was later provided to the FBI. The bureau soon confirmed: the finger belonged to Ahmed, making him the first American known to have engaged in a suicide bombing anywhere in the world.
Overall, the bureau estimates about 20 Somali-Americans have left the Minneapolis area in the past couple of years to fight in Somalia. Why do they go? The new Justice case focuses in part on a handful recruiters who have enticed the young men by glorifying the scene at the Somalia training camp. One of the recruiters, Cabdulaahi Faarax (who, according to the affidavit, was last seen on Oct. 8 at the U.S.-Mexico border on his way to Tijuana) had told young co-conspirators (including the confidential informant) that they could experience “true brotherhood” by going to fight in Somalia. Not only would the recruits have “fun” and "get to shoot guns,” Faarax also told the informant how he also got to go to Kenya and marry two women.
The one thing Faarax apparently didn’t mention was that the young recruits might end up with their bodies smashed to bits—leaving behind only one finger so their remains could be identified to their loved ones by the FBI.
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Michael Isikoff has been an award-winning investigative correspondent for Newsweek since 2004. He has written extensively on the U.S. government's war on terrorism, the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, presidential politics and other national issues. His book, "Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War," co-written with David Corn, was an instant New York Times best-seller when it was published in September, 2006. The book was hailed by the New York Times Book Review as "fascinating reading" and "the most comprehensive account of the White House's political machinations" in the run up to the war in Iraq. Since January 2009, Isikoff has been an MSNBC contributor, making regular appearances on the Rachel Maddow Show and Hardball w/ Chris Matthews.
Ever since the events of September 11, Isikoff has broken repeated stories about the U.S. government's war on terror and won numerous journalism awards. His blog "DeClassified: Investigative Reporting in Real Time," which appears regularly on Newsweek's Web site and is written with MarkHosenball, has become a must-read for senior U.S. intelligence officials. Isikoff and Hosenball won the 2005 award from the Society of Professional Journalists for best investigative reporting online.
Isikoff's June 2002 Newsweek cover story on U.S. intelligence failures that preceded the 9-11 terror attacks, along with a series of related articles, was honored with the Investigative Reporters and Editors top prize for investigative reporting in magazine journalism. He was honored, along with a team of Newsweek reporters, by the Society of Professional Journalists for coverage of the Abu Ghraib scandal. For that coverage, Isikoff obtained exclusive internal White House, Justice Department and State Department memos showing how decisions made at the highest levels of the Bush administration led to abuses in the interrogation of terror suspects. Isikoff was also part of a reporting team that earned Newsweek the National Magazine Award for General Excellence in 2002, the highest award in magazine journalism, for their coverage of the aftermath of the September 11 terror attacks.
Isikoff's exclusive reporting on the Monica Lewinsky scandal gained him national attention in 1998, including profiles in The New York Times and The Washington Post and a guest appearance on "Late Show with David Letterman." His coverage of the events that lead to President Bill Clinton's impeachment earned Newsweek the prestigious National Magazine Award in the Reporting category in 1999. Isikoff's reporting also won the National Headliner Award, the Edgar A. Poe Award presented by the White House Correspondents Association and the Gerald R. Ford Journalism Prize for Reporting on the Presidency. In 2001, Isikoff was named on a list of "most influential journalists" in the nation's capital by Washingtonian magazine.
Isikoff is the author of "Uncovering Clinton: A Reporter's Story," a book that chronicled his own reporting of the Lewinsky story and was hailed by a critic for The Washington Post-Los Angeles Times news service as "the absolutely essential narrative of the scandal with revelations that no one would have thought possible." The book, also a New York Times bestseller, was named Best Non-Fiction Book of 1999 by the Book of the Month Club.
Isikoff came to Newsweek from The Washington Post, where he had been a reporter since September 1981. There he covered the Justice Department and the Persian Gulf War, reported on international drug operations in Latin America and worked on the Post's financial news desk. Isikoff graduated from Washington University with a B.A. in 1974 and received a Masters in Journalism from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism in 1976.
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