The FBI in Minnesota is investigating reports that a local Somali youth and 11 others recently left for Syria, by way of Turkey, allegedly to fight alongside Syrian rebels. Several former top military and civilian officials criticized President Obama’s timeline for withdrawal from Afghanistan. On May 31, New York resident Mufid A. Elfgeeh, a naturalized US citizen from Yemen, was arrested and charged with firearms violations; he had planned to kill returning US troops as well as local Shiites. He had expressed support for al Qaeda and sought donations for Sunni jihadists in Syria. A recent report found that the number of jihadist groups worldwide more than doubled between 2010 and 2013, and that the estimated number of jihadist fighters also doubled in that period, growing to as many as 100,000.
