Pirates Tied to al Qaeda

Somali Extremists Have al Qaeda Ties
Another failed state has become a training ground for terrorists.

By ALI SOUFAN
The mortars fired at the plane carrying New Jersey Rep. Donald Payne out of Mogadishu Airport on Monday were a sharp reminder that although the recent focus on Somalia has been on piracy, the bigger threat comes from terrorists operating onshore. On land, radical jihadists now have one of the largest territories from which to operate since the Taliban hosted al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

The terrorist group that fired on Mr. Payne is al Shabab ("the Youths"), a one-time military wing of the Islamist Courts Union that ruled Somalia for six months before Ethiopia invaded and deposed them in December 2006. Designated as a terrorist organization by the State Department, al Shabab's aim is to create a Taliban-style Islamic state in Somalia. In pursuit of this goal it uses the most ruthless of methods: executions, beatings, torture and suicide bombing.

Credit Shortage in D.C.

The question of how much credit President Obama deserves in the dramatic rescue of Captain Phillips has been batted around in the media for the past couple of days. Most of the comments I’ve heard have given Obama credit, though admittedly it’s in the negative form of credit for not preventing the Navy from rescuing Captain Phillips. (I don’t believe anyone has said he deserves credit for being the driving force behind the rescue).

I think the reason for the stinginess to Obama is that, right up until the moment when news of the successful rescue was broadcast on Easter Sunday, no American aware of the situation—and that includes Obama’s suporters—was entirely sure that Obama himself wouldn’t be the cause of a worse outcome, such as allowing the pirates to spirit Phillips successfully away into Somalia, or paying ransom to pirates to get him back.

Of the expert commentary I was hearing before the crisis was resolved, from retired military guys and merchant marines, none of them had the slightest doubt that the U.S. Navy would be able to rescue the Captain if allowed to do so; instead, what had them worried was that a decision might be made in the White House to appease the pirates, or otherwise tie the hands of the Navy—basically, they were terrified that Obama would order the Navy to stand by, or stand down and do nothing.

As it is now turning out, these anxieties were unfounded. Whether or not they were completely unfounded, we don’t know yet, because we’re not yet privy to the inner workings of Obama’s inner circle. (O, God, I can only imagine).

But why did America have so much doubt about whether or not Obama would do the right thing?

Because, no matter how successfully Obama seems to have stepped up to seeming “presidential” as a stylist or as an excellent speaker, what he hasn’t done is convince a lot of his countrymen that he’s going to do the right thing when it comes to protecting the country from our enemies. He’s only been in office eighty-some days, and just behold Caroline Glick’s terrifying summary of Obama’s single-minded mission to lower the flag.

I have no doubt that if Bush had still been in office, he was would have forcefully denounced this attack on American interests without diluting our national options with a lot of empty talk about “partnership” and “cooperation.” (This turned out as an American operation from first-to-last: partnership with other countries played no role in the rescue of Capt. Phillips.) Afterwards, Bush would have called to congratulate the commander and Capt. Phillips for their heroism, specifically commending captain and crew them for their exemplary “American” response to the pirate attack. There may even have been some good-natured bravado with the guys who went from being victims to victors in taking there ship back from these punks.

On some level even Bush’s enemies, and that vast swath of Americans who’ve allowed themselves to be persuaded that they always hated him, too, never would have had any doubt that Bush would come out swinging in the same circumstances. Most likely, as soon as the ship was taken, the New York Times and Phil Donohue would have been publicly begging for Congressional intervention to stop the Commander in Chief from reacting in a cowboy-like, "arrogant" fashion. But what never would have occurred to anyone would be that Commander-in-Chief Bush would ever call the Navy up and tell them to back off.

President Obama had millions of us convinced he just might be capable of that.

That element of doubt about this current president's judgment will not be cured just because the media tries this to call this a successful foreign crisis test.

Distraction on the High Seas

It occurred to me today that Carter’s hostage crisis, the enduring symbol of failure that marked his administration for the failure that it was, came near the end of his four years. Obama’s hostage crisis is coming early.

James Lewis at American Thinker discusses how the rest of the world sees this as a test for Obama: “And so, far Obama is flunking.”

For helping to bring to light the predicament of the free world having this badly outmatched man as leader, Lewis thinks gratitude toward the Somali pirates is in order.

Read what he has to say here.

Made in America

What in hell is going on in Minneapolis?

I just had an intrusive thought based on the old Mary Tyler Moore Show. Picture the opening sequence where the newly-blossoming Mary Richards celebrates her realization that she's gonna make it after all by tossing her beret in the air somewhere on a crowded street in downtown Minneapolis.

Now imagine that same scene, only with this guy tossing his keffiyeh.

From the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:

FBI chief: Suicide bomber indoctrinated in Minnesota

By STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

February 24, 2009

FBI Director Robert Mueller said Monday in Washington, D.C., that a Somali-American man from Minnesota who was one of several suicide bombers in a terrorist attack in Somalia had apparently been indoctrinated into his extremist beliefs while living in Minneapolis.

Shirwa Ahmed, the first known suicide bomber with U.S. citizenship, immigrated with his family to the Minneapolis area in the mid-1990s, but returned to Somalia after he was recruited by a militant group, Mueller said.

The FBI director, who spoke at a meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations, declined to be more specific, and did not mention the Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic Center, a Minneapolis mosque that some of the young men, including Ahmed, attended, and which some local Somali families have suggested is linked to their disappearance.

Late Monday, an Abubakar spokesman said again that the mosque had nothing to do with the men's disappearances.

Ahmed was driving a vehicle laden with explosives that blew up in northern Somalia in an attack that killed as many 30 people in October, according to news reports. His body was returned to Minnesota with the help of the FBI.

"It appears that this individual was radicalized in his hometown in Minnesota," Mueller said.

Federal authorities have said that Ahmed was one of as many as two dozen young men of Somali descent who disappeared in the past two years from their homes in the Minneapolis area after being recruited by the Shabab, a militia suspected of having ties to Al-Qaida that has waged a war against the Somali government.

Some in Minneapolis' Somali community have said the young men disappeared after being radicalized at Abubakar. Representatives of the mosque have vigorously and repeatedly denied that the mosque has any connection to the men's disappearance or to any violent ideology.

Attorney Mahir Sherif, a consultant to the mosque, said in a telephone interview late Monday that Mueller "doesn't really know what's happened" and that he's "surprised that he would make such a comment."

The mosque is the largest in Minneapolis, Sherif said, drawing 10,000 to 15,000 people for the last fall's celebration marking the end of Ramadan.

"It's just frustrating to see people at high levels make such statements," he said. "It angers me they can just say this. This is affecting a lot of people. The mosque and Somalis have received a lot of hate messages because of this."

Two weeks ago, the mosque's director also rebuffed rumors.

"We have nothing to do with these kids who left," said Director Farhan Hurre. "I mean, we don't know the time they left, we don't why they left, we don't know who convinced them to go there."

This past weekend, the mosque held a seminar about how suicide is prohibited by Islam attended by hundreds of Somali youth, Sherif said.

"What more can this mosque do?" he said. "They've gone out publicly, and they've put it on paper, that there's nothing secret going on, there are not two separate messages going out. ... The Koran says you can't kill yourself. If you do, you're going straight to hell."

On Monday in Washington, Mueller suggested that Somali recruiting posed a serious issue for the FBI, which has sought the cooperation of the Somali community to try to understand whether the recruiting represents a threat.