September 16, 2007

An American Terrorist in Somalia

I'll let you go watch it over at Weasel Zips. It's sickening, really. To be honest, I think I might know who this guy is, but still not sure. Expect an update in the next day or two.

You may remember that there was already at least one American convicted of helping the African Taliban in their jihad. Daniel Joseph Maldonado, aka Daniel Aljughaifi, was convicted of training to commit acts of terrorism overseas. He now denies that he was in Somalia helping the African Courts Union set up an Islamic state and that he only copped a plea to reduce a potential terrorism conviction. But witnesses in Somalia not only place him as an active ICU fighter, but also receiving training from al Qaeda operatives.

It is also known that Madonado has a number of supporters and sympathizers in the U.S., some of whom have vowed to continue the jihad in Somalia.

In addition to Maldonado, one of the heads of the African Taliban is an American. Ibrahim Hassan Addou is an American citizen and the ICU's "Foreign Minister".

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August 28, 2007

African Taliban Killing Children

Buried in this article about renewed fighting in Somalia between the African Taliban of the Islamic Courts Union and the Ethiopian backed Somali forces is this nugget:

On Sunday, a roadside bomb killed two children and an elderly man and wounded five people.
Apparently its just too obvious to identify those responsible. In addition, at least 4 other civilians are known to have died in Somalia over the past few days.

So, we have international conferences, awareness campaigns, and conventions on the use of land mines, how come we never hear any international outrage over the use of IEDs? Maybe the U.S. or its allies ought to start planting roadside bombs just so we can finally hear some condemnation of their use.

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July 14, 2007

UN Human Rights Commission Member Bombing Civilians in Sudan

The Sudanese military is, once again, bombing civilians in Darfur. Sudan is a member of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. Will somebody remind the U.N. enthusiasts about these two facts, please.

Reuters:

"After a halt in the bombing between the beginning of February and the end of April in 2007, the Sudanese government has resumed bombing in Darfur," [U.S. envoy Andrew] Natsios said.

"This should end and the ceasefire that was agreed to sometime ago should be respected. We urge the Sudanese government to end all bombing in Darfur immediately," he said. ....

Natsios also said the United States was disturbed by reports that the Sudanese government was deliberately trying to change Darfur's demography by settling non-Sudanese Arab tribes there.

In layman's terms, that last paragraph is about ethnic cleansing.

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May 01, 2007

Muslims Burn Koran! - But where is the outrage??

This NBC report from Chad depicts the "scorched earth" campaign being waged by the Janjaweed, which includes the burning of Korans (along with the rest of the village).
Yet surprisingly, there is no outrage from the world Islamic community!
Where are the riots? Where are the banners reading "Death to The Janjaweed"?
I mean... shouldn't they at least murder an Imam in protest or something?

Apparently in the mainstream Muslim world, it is perfectly alright for 'Arab Muslims' to exterminate entire villages of 'African Muslims', but one false report about a Koran being desecrated at GITMO, and all hell breaks loose.

But who are we kidding? Muslims committing atrocities?
Deep down, we all know this is somehow the work of those damned Zionists.

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April 26, 2007

African Taliban Child Abuse: 10 Year Old Fighting in Mogadishu

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According to a website affiliated with the al Qaeda linked Somali Islamic Courts Union, the above picture is of a "10yr old Mujahid takes part in the fighting around Kaah Hotel" in Mogadishu.

Unlike most pictures of Muslim children carrying guns as a symbol of a future jihadi, this one is actually using the weapon. And unlike me, who is disgusted by the image, the website praises the child for "resisting the Tigree [Ethiopian Christians]".

"Shabelle" is a Somali news service. Shabelle captions it "A 10 year-old Somali Islamist boy aims his AK 47 rifle at an Ethiopian military base nearby in North of the capital on Monday."

Just to show that the image wasn't staged, a second image of the boy with two others is captioned: "Three Somali Islamist insurgents, including a 10 year-old boy, are busy unfolding their PKM ammunitions behind a building wall in north of the capital on Monday April 23, 2007."

UPDATE: Just to clarify, I found the image posted at an African Courts Union website, not at Shabelle. It is the African Courts Union that has ties to al Qaeda. I later found the original at Shabelle.

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March 22, 2007

Muslims Murder Christian Teacher for "Koran Desecration"

Ah, the Religion of Tolerance, once again, tolerates someone to death. The teacher had apparently taken away a Koran from a student who was reading it in class. The students then accused her of 'desecrating it' before murdering her.

What constitutes 'desecration'? Apparently her unclean (harem) Christian hands touched the Quran.

The reporter goes on to the 'nuanced' explanationthat the teacher wasn't really killed for blasphemy, but claims that in 'reality' religion just a cover for 'ethnic or political conflicts and competition for resources'.

Right. Denial aint just a river in Nigeria......

The reporter also does not let the readers know that the state of Gombe---like most of Northern Nigeria-- where the incident happened, is ruled by sharia law.

BBC:

Secondary school pupils in north-eastern Nigeria have killed a teacher after apparently accusing her of desecrating the Koran, police say.

The teacher, a Christian, was attacked after supervising an exam in Gombe city....Similar accusations sparked riots in neighbouring Bauchi State last year.

Thanks to Lucky for helping make this an all Africa day at the Jawa.

UPDATE: Good news on a related front--Fwench court acquites cartoon blasphemers.

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Mauritania: Islamic "Model" for Democracy

Publius Pundit reports on an Islamic country which seems to fast be heading towards democracy and which, he claims, could serve as a model for other Muslim majority countries. Seems like very good news.

Of course, there's this one little caveat:

This isn't to say that Mauritania is a shining bright spot on the world. It's one of the only places in the world where slavery is still practiced to a large degree; racial [sic--"racism"???] has historically been extreme. Economic and cultural liberalization have been slow to take hold and in most cases outright suppressed since independence.
Hopefully he's right that the new democratic movement will lead to liberalism. Personally, I'm more of a fan of liberty than I am of democracy, but rarely do we find one without the other. I'll keep my fingers crossed, but I can only hold my breath for so long.

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March 21, 2007

"Screw Them"--African Taliban Desecrate Bodies

Yesterday, I noted that a group calling itself Tawhid wal Jihad in Somalia had claimed responsibility for several attacks in Mogadishu. I also noted that as being significant because Tawhid wal Jihad was the name of Abu Musab al Zarqawi's organization in Iraq before he officially changed it to al Qaeda. I then warned that you should, "expect casualties and atrocities."

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Residents of Mogadishu gather around the body of a Somali soldier who was killed during heavy fighting in Somalia's capital. The fighting killed as many as 14 people in an escalation of violence which saw the bodies of dead soldiers burned and dragged through the streets.(AFP/Mustafa Abdi)

Many may have forgotten about the last time a group calling itself Tawhid wal Jihad was part of an Islamist governingg coalition. That city was Fallujah and under the administration of a Salafi Islamist Shura Council it offered safe haven for Abu Musab al Zarqawi and allowed members of his group enforce Taliban like style justice.

--->More more...

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March 20, 2007

Tawhid wal Jihad in Somalia Emulate Zarqawi

Still think that al Qaeda and the Islamic Courts Union aren't working together? Yesterday, Vinnie posted about an "insurgent" attack in Somalia. Today, a group calling itself Tawhid wal Jihad in Somalia claimed responsibility for the attack.

Significance?

Tawhid wal Jihad was the name of Abu Musab al Zarqawi's organization in Iraq, before they changed their name to al Qaeda.

A group calling itself the Brigades of Tawhid and Jihad in the Land of Somalia claimed responsibility for the late Monday attacks.

It said in a statement posted on the Web site of Somalia's routed Islamic movement that it attacked several parts of the capital where "infidels live." [source]

And, as noted by Vinnie yesterday, despite the fact that the group claiming responsibility for the attack has chosen to name themselves after that of a known terrorist who's claim to fame is slowly beheading civilian hostages, the AP chooses to call them insurgents. Expect casualties and atrocities. more...

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March 19, 2007

The African Taliban: Now A Protected Species

Along with terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine, the African Taliban in Somalia now lies cozy under the warm blanket of media terminology:

MOGADISHU (AFP) - Mortar shells crashed onto Mogadishu's port on Monday, triggering heavy fighting between insurgents and Somali troops, as military hardware arrived by sea for African peacekeepers.

Funny, I don't recall the Islamic Courts Union being referred to as "insurgents" when they ran the country, and I don't recall the few Somalis who stood up to them as being referred to as "insurgents" at the time either.

"Insurgent" translated into plain English? "Nothing to see here, move along."

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February 19, 2007

Egyptian Blogger Disowned by His Family

Michelle reports on some unfortunate developments in the story of jailed Egyptian blogger Kareem Abdul Nabil Suleiman, as detailed at FREEKAREEM.ORG:

The family of Al-Azhar student Abdul Kareem Nabeel Suleiman, accused of “contempt of religion”, has disowned him before his court verdict session on the upcoming Thursday. His father, a retired mathematics teacher, has demanded applying the Sharia [Islamic law] ruling on him by giving him three days to repent, followed by having him killed if he does not announce his repentance. ...

The father of the accused also described the organizations that are working on having his son acquitted as “monkey rights” organizations, in his own words. He also described his son as the “monkey” who has imitated the atheists of the West in their intellectual thinking.

The family also said that they will announce their disownment of their son on the Internet as well.

Apparently, the family doesn't mind using the atheist monkeys' technology when the science set forth in their Holy Quran turns out to be complete bullshit.

My heart goes out to you, Kareem. Would that your courage was more common here in the West.

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February 15, 2007

Daniel Joseph Maldonado: How the Internet Created a Terrorist

Daniel-Al-Jughaifi.jpgHow does Daniel Joseph Maldonado, a mild-mannered married Boston native, become transformed into Daniel Al-Jughaifi, a zealous supporter of sharia law, and then into Abu Mohammed, an armed jihadi fighting in Somalia alongside al Qaeda operatives? The internet, that's how.

Aaron at Internet Hagannah traces Maldonado's exodus:

Attitudes like Daniel's don't develop in a vacuum. They develop and are nurtured in community with other Muslims, and that community is found online. Islamist forums function like little terrorist factories. Muslims enter at one end, and terrorists and their plots issue forth from the other end. No matter how good we are at monitoring these online communities, the fact is that relying on such monitoring to prevent terrorist attacks is like trying to catch a bullet in mid-flight. Just ask the man who was murdered in Kismaayo. Better to go for the weapon, before the trigger is pulled. The forums are the weapon, and this is why people like Sasjamal [who ran the Islamic forum that Daniel was a moderator at] are culpable for the damage that results from their efforts to create and maintain these forums.

How we proceed from here is open to debate. There is more than one way to deal with online communities of Islamic extremists. But there is no doubt that watching them is not enough.

Indeed. You can't kill all the terrorists, but it's not nearly as difficult to take out the main jihadi forums as the talking heads suggest. more...

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January 26, 2007

Algerian Terrorists Officially Join al Qaeda

The Algerian Salafist Group for Prayer and Combat (GSPC) had already been loosely affiliated with al Qaeda, but now they've officially adopted the al Qaeda label. Evan Kohlmann at CT blog:

According to the statement, the decision to adopt the Al-Qaida moniker was made "as an indication of the group's vibrancy, the strength of its coalition [with Usama Bin Laden], and the sincerity of the link between the mujahideen in Algeria, and other brothers from the Al-Qaida organization."
Interestingly, the group claims to "have consulted with Osama bin Laden" before making a final decision. An indication that maybe he is both alive and even possibly in Africa.

The Arabic is below. more...

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January 24, 2007

Somalia : Another Airstrike

Details here:

The new air strike came roughly two weeks after an AC-130 plane killed what Washington said were eight al Qaeda-affiliated fighters hiding among Islamist remnants pushed to Somali's southern tip by Ethiopian and Somali government forces.

One official said the targets were from the Somalia Islamic Courts Council (SICC), a militant group defeated by government troops with Ethiopian armor and air power in a two-week war started before Christmas.

A second source said the target was an al Qaeda operative. A Pentagon spokesman declined to comment.

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January 22, 2007

Somali Islamist Leader Surrenders

(Nairobi, Kenya) This report has been confirmed by a couple unnamed Western diplomats.

Somali Islamist leader Sheikh Sharif Ahmed has surrendered to Kenyan authorities at the Somali border, Somali intelligence officials and Western diplomats said on Monday.

Ahmed, considered a moderate in the Islamist movement ousted from power by Somali and Ethiopian forces in late December, surrendered on Sunday and was in Kenyan custody, they said.

I'd like to believe that American AC-130 gunships pulverizing Mogadishu helped Sheikh Sharif Ahmed in his decision to surrender.

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January 19, 2007

African Taliban's Website Terminated

The Islamic Courts Union's website used to be here, but....

youreterminaited.JPG
more...

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January 16, 2007

Somalia : Top Islamic Militia Leader Arrested

Via AP:

GARISSA, Kenya (AP) -- Kenyan police arrested a top leader in Somalia's Islamic militant movement on Monday, a Kenyan security official said.

The leader was arrested at midmorning at a refugee camp near the Kenyan border with Somalia, the official said, quoting from a police report. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said he was on his way to the Dadaab refugee camp, 62 miles (100 kilometers) east of Garisa, to help identify the suspect.

If confirmed, the arrest could be a major step toward ending the fighting in Somalia, which began when Ethiopian troops intervened to stop the Islamic movement's advance to destroy the internationally backed government. Top movement leaders Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys and Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed have pledged to carry on a guerrilla war as long as Ethiopian troops remain in Somalia.

According to other reports, the leader in question is Sheikh Ahmed Sharif Sheikh, second in command to UIC leader Sheikh Hassan Aweys.

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January 15, 2007

Somalia : Islamic Courts Militias Striking Back?

Story here:

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somali gunmen fired at a convoy of Ethiopian troops in Mogadishu, the latest in a series of attacks against forces backing the government, a Somali government source said on Monday.

The attack happened late on Sunday in the northern Arafat area, where hours before Ethiopian soldiers helped government troops seize guns and explosives in a push to restore order after ousting Islamists in a lightning December offensive.

"An Ethiopian convoy was hit near Arafat hospital ... Two Ethiopian trucks were hit," the source said. "Thirty minutes of heavy fighting followed. There are deaths on both sides," the source added, saying three Somalis were killed in the shootout.

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January 09, 2007

Amerian Jihadi in Somalia Now Officially a Traitor

Now that the U.S. is actively hitting targets in Somalia, doesn't that make the Islamic Courts Union's 'Foreign Minister'--an American citizen named Ibrahim Hassan Addou--officially a traitor?

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Somalia : "We gave permission for actions that are more than airstrikes"

From Monsters&Critics:

An AC-130 gunship flying from Djibouti carried out the attack in southern Somalia after US intelligence tracked the operatives with an unmanned aerial drone, CBS news reported.

White House spokesman Tony Snow confirmed the US military operation took place Sunday, but did not offer details. ...

A close aide of Prime Minister Ali Gedi had earlier confirmed that one of those responsible for the 1998 attacks was killed, according to a Washington Post report, and also said authorization for further operations had been granted.

'We gave permission for actions that are more than airstrikes,' Abdirisak Hassan told the Post in an interview conducted early Tuesday.

The US had expressed concern that Somalia could become a staging ground for terrorists. Last week State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the US had stationed forces off the coast of Somalia and was working with other countries in the region to ensure that Islamists linked to terrorism are not able to flee the country.

UPDATE: Jihadi durka-durkas?- Meet the AC-130 Spectre:



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A.P. Runs Unverified Report on Somali al Qaeda

Actually, given the AP's propensity towards hyperbole, it should read: U.S. Bombs Newlyweds, Children, Pupppies!

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Somalia : The "Stealth" Presence

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross has a good post on the often-ignored U.S. presence in Somalia:

U.S. ground forces have been active in Somalia from the start, a senior military intelligence officer confirmed. “In fact,” he said, “they were part of the first group in.”

These ground forces include CIA paramilitary officers who are based out of Galkayo, in Somalia’s semiautonomous region of Puntland; Special Operations forces; and Marine units operating out of Camp Lemonier in Djibouti....

...A senior military intelligence source says that some of the gunships earlier described as Ethiopian were in fact U.S. aircraft. This has been confirmed by Dahir Jibreel, the transitional government's permanent secretary in charge of international cooperation, who said that U.S. planes and helicopters with their markings obscured have been striking targets since December 25.

Payback's a bitch, ain't it?

H/t : James Joyner.

UPDATE by Rusty: Have I not been saying for months that al Qaeda is in Somalia? And haven't I also been saying that the U.S. has a presence there as well? Yeah, I don't have a perfect track record, but I'll take the self-congratulations when I can get them.

I love A.J. Strata's headline for this: Bush Finishes Clinton’s Unfinished Job

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January 08, 2007

US Goes After African Taliban

No word on just who the high value targets were today, but we know that the US is seeking several people thought to be behind the bombings of our embassies.

Via CBS News: The targets included the senior al Qaeda leader in East Africa and an al Qaeda operative wanted for his involvement in the 1998 bombings of two American embassies in Africa, Martin reports. Those terror attacks killed more than 200 people.

The AC-130 gunship is capable of firing thousands of rounds per second, and sources say a lot of bodies were seen on the ground after the strike, but there is as yet, no confirmation of the identities....

Once they started moving, the al Qaeda operatives became easier to track, and the U.S. military started preparing for an air strike, using unmanned aerial drones to keep them under surveillance and moving the aircraft carrier Eisenhower out of the Persian Gulf toward Somalia. But when the order was given, the mission was assigned to the AC-130 gunship operated by the U.S. Special Operations command.

If the attack got the operatives it was aimed at, reports Martin, it would deal a major blow to al Qaeda in East Africa.

Rusty has speculated that Bin Laden is in Africa. One can hope.

But USA Today reportedon Dec. 31 that Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan and Abu Taha al-Sudani were the men thought to be hiding there.

USA Today Dec 31:Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi said government troops were going after three al-Qaeda terror suspects wanted in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in east Africa that killed more than 250 people.

He said Islamic militants in Kismayo, Somalia's third-largest city, were sheltering accused bombers Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan and Abu Taha al-Sudani...

..."We would like to capture or kill these guys at any cost," Gedi told the AP. "They are the root of the problem."

Looks like the problem is solved.

More here from Mary Katharine Ham at Michelle Malkin's blog.

Update: My condolences to Steve Innskeep, who was audibly depressed over the defeat of the African Taliban. I thought he was going to cry. The sad, sad, Yoyo Ma cello music was a nice touch though.

Update: We're doomed, Doomed I say!

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Christmas in Darfur on Chicago Tonight [BRD]

Thank you all for your warm wishes. As a quick update, we will be appearing at 7 pm (Chicago time) on a program on Chicago's PBS station, Chicago Tonight. In support of the appearance, we've posted the results of some research about the number of people that have been burned out of their homes or killed in Darfur.

As mentioned, we will be posting regularly at the blog in order to provide updates about the status of the project, information and news, and pictures and stories from the trip. We do have a few interesting things in the offing, but we will probably sit tight on them a bit in the short term.

Past that, some folks have expressed an interest in what some of our next steps will be. Well, I am still digging out from a raft of emails, and don't have time to elaborate, but we will be explaining some of the Things That We Plan On Doing, and How You Can Help.

Again, the moral and direct support you folks have given has been of immense help, and honestly has restored some of my faith in the generosity of the American spirit.

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January 05, 2007

American al Qaeda Killed in Somalia

Given the fact that the "Foreign Minister" for the Islamic Courts Union is an American citizen named Ibrahim Hassan Addou, I find the reports that American citizens are among the dead in Somalia very credible. Are the Americans al Qaeda fighters or simply Somali expats who have American citizenship and then went back to Somalia to fight for the Islamists? I'm not sure that the U.N. backed Somalian government is the best source of information given their sketchy past.

There is no doubt that al Qaeda and like-minded Salafist jihadis are in Somalia fighting to establish a Taliban-like state---I have personally seen some very credible evidence of that fact. Somalia has recently surpassed Iraq as the jihadis cause célèbre, as evidenced by the new Somalia themed Zawahiri video released yesterday.

If one of the recovered American passports reads Adam Gadahn, I'll definitely be more than a little happy. I'd also be happy if Professor Ibrahim Hassan Addou was found dead.

But there are an awful lot of Somalian refugees scattered all over the world--some in the U.S., but many more in Canada and Europe--many of whom have sympathies with the ICU. So, many of these 'foreigners' are likely dual citizens. It's not all that difficult to tell an Arab or Pakistani from a Somali, though.

In any event it would be very prudent for Homeland Security to be on the lookout for American citizens of Somali, Eritrean, Djiboutian, or Ethiopian (a sizeable minority of Ethiopian citizens have sympathies to the ICU) coming home from international flights.

ABC's The Blotter:

A senior official in the Somali government's new Ministry of the Interior told ABC News government forces had recovered "dozens of foreign passports," including several American passports, on the bodies of al Qaeda fighters killed in combat between forces affiliated with the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) and Ethiopian forces in Somalia.

According to the same source, most of the foreign passports were Sudanese, Pakistani and Yemeni, but several American, British and Australian passports were also recovered.

Hat tip Allahpundit for the Blotter link.

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