Yesterday the Star Tribune (published in Minneapolis-St. Paul) reported on a seemingly significant arrest in the Netherlands related to the al Shabaab recruiting networks that have centered on the Twin Cities area. From the Star Tribune:
A 43-year-old Somali man from Minneapolis was arrested this week in the Netherlands for allegedly financing the recruitment of up to 20 young Somali men from Minnesota to train and fight with terrorists in their homeland…. The identity of the man, who was arrested Sunday at an asylum-seeker’s center 45 miles northeast of Amsterdam, was not released. But Special Agent E.K. Wilson of the Minneapolis FBI office confirmed Tuesday that the man was arrested in connection with the ongoing counterterrorism investigation that began here when young men began disappearing in 2007. “We are aware of this individual and of this arrest. And it is tied to our ongoing Minneapolis investigation,” Wilson said. “We are and have been working closely with Dutch authorities through our legal attach
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2 Comments
Shabaab recruiting in Sweden has recently made headline news here as well. The network seems worldwide. It’s frustrating for many of us here that the authorities don’t seem to take this threat seriously.
The Local: Teens sign up for jihad at Stockholm youth centre
Swedish taxpayers helped fund a youth recreation centre in the north Stockholm suburb of Rinkeby which served as a recruiting station for the Somalia-based Islamist group al-Shabaab.
More than ten young people from the predominantly immigrant neighbourhood who spoke with Sveriges Radio (SR), said that the recruitment drive was led by a youth leader at the Kreativitetshuset recreation centre.
The entire article is here:
http://www.thelocal.se/23212/20091111/
Swede:
The recruiting networks are indeed worldwide. They exist not only in the U.S. and Sweden, but also have been documented in Britain, Canada, and Sweden, to name three other countries off the top of my head. They are not limited to the West, but extend to the Middle East as well.
In my post, I linked to an article in CTR Vantage (a regular publication of FDD’s Center for Terrorism Research, which I direct). Those who are interested in more information about these recruiting networks (keeping in mind that much is still unknown about them) can find the article at http://bit.ly/2E67vJ. The entire first issue of CTR Vantage is in fact devoted to Shabaab’s recruiting efforts: http://bit.ly/9pZ0w.