Terror Group That Claimed Kenya Attack Has Recruited Americans Before

[The Stig]

Original story HERE (http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/kenya-attack-raises-terror-concerns-us/story?id=20336438) at abcnews




Terror Group That Claimed Kenya Attack Has Recruited Americans Before
Sept. 22, 2013
By BRIAN ROSS, JAMES GORDON MEEK and MEGAN CHUCHMACH

The same group that claimed responsibility for an attack on a Kenyan mall this weekend that has claimed at least 68 lives has previously recruited dozens of Americans to join their cause.

U.S. officials estimate that as many as 50 Americans have traveled to training camps in Somalia, the home of the al Qaeda-linked terror group al-Shabaab, over the last six years.

Just last month, al-Shabaab released a video showing three young men claiming to be from Minneapolis who the terror group said later died as martyrs.

"This is the best place to be honestly," one of the men says. "I can only tell you from my experience being here, that you have the best of dreams, you eat the best of food, and you're with the best of the brothers and sisters who came here for the sake of Allah. If you guys only knew how much fun we have over here. This is the real Disneyland, you need to come here and join us and take pleasure in this fun."

READ: Americans Slip from Minnesota to Somali Terror Group, FBI Says

Another American, Omar Hammami of Daphne, Ala., rose to a leadership position in al-Shabaab until he was reportedly killed by rivals in the group earlier this month. Hammami, widely known as the rapping jihadist, recorded several videos of himself rhyming about what he saw as his holy war against the West and the glory of martyrdom.

Hammami and other al-Shabaab leaders have vowed to hit U.S. targets and officials worry the American recruits still there could return home with that mission in mind.

"This is something scary," Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent and terror expert, told ABC News. "I mean, if you think about individuals who went and fought in a place like Somalia and when they come back home, there's nothing good that can come of this... What we see today in Kenya could be easily copied here in the United States."

Earlier this month ABC News reported that intelligence and law enforcement officials said at any given moment, the FBI has under watch as many as 100 people in the U.S. suspected of being linked to or inspired by al Qaeda or its affiliates.

During Congressional testimony in January 2012, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper listed al-Shabaab as one of the most significant terror threats to the homeland, in part due to a "foreign fighter cadre that includes U.S. passport holders... [who] may have aspirations to attack inside the United States."

However, a senior law enforcement official said the latest U.S. government analysis shows no heightened threat to the U.S. as a result of the Kenya attack. While al-Shabaab does have a desire to strike at Western targets in Africa, hitting the U.S. homeland is "not a priority" for them, the official said.

Al-Shabaab claimed the attack on the Westgate Mall in Kenya was retaliation for the 2011 invovlement of Kenyan forces in anti-terror operations in Somalia.

ABC News' Dana Hughes and Mike Levine contributed to this report.

I started a separate thread because I didn't want this buried in the mall attack thread.

Prep accordingly my friends.

[The Stig]

Original story HERE (http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_KENYA_MALL_ATTACK_AL_SHABAB_ANALYSIS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-09-23-08-19-22) at the AP




Sep 23, 8:19 AM EDT

Analysis: Kenya attack a shift for Somali rebels?

By KIMBERLY DOZIER

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House is under pressure to ramp up counterterrorism action against al-Shabab in Somalia following the al-Qaida-linked group's deadly attack on an upscale Kenyan shopping mall that has killed and injured dozens, including Americans.

Republican lawmakers Sunday said the attack showed al-Qaida is growing in size and strength, belying the Obama administration's claims that it has grown weaker.

"They're not on the decline," said Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, the ranking Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, on CBS' "Face the Nation." `'They're on the rise, as you can see from Nairobi."

Al-Shabab militants launched their assault on Saturday, storming the mall with grenades and gunfire. Kenyan security forces launched a "major" assault late Sunday on the mall, where the militants were still holding an unknown number of hostages, trying to end the two-day standoff that had already killed at least 68 people. The Kenya Defense Forces said their troops had rescued "most" hostages and taken control of most of the mall in Nairobi.

State Department spokesman Marie Harf said five U.S. citizens were among the more than 175 injured, but no Americans were among those reported killed. Harf said U.S. law enforcement, military and civilian personnel in Nairobi are providing advice and assistance as requested by the Kenyan authorities.

U.S. counterterrorism officials throughout the Obama administration have debated whether to target the Somalia-based rebel group more directly, especially after it merged with al-Qaida in early 2012. But U.S. action has been limited to the occasional drone strike or raid when a particularly high-value al-Qaida target comes into view, while relying primarily on assisting Somali and African peacekeeping forces to carry out the day-to-day fight.

That decision was partly driven by the fear that directly targeting al-Shabab would spur the group to expand its own target list, striking at U.S. diplomatic posts overseas and calling on members of the Somali diaspora inside the U.S. to carry out attacks, according to multiple current and former U.S. counterterrorism officials. They all spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss publicly internal policy decisions.

A White House official said Sunday that the administration had taken a "balanced approach."

"It's not a question of either direct action or playing a supporting role," National Security Council spokesman Jonathan Lalley said by email Sunday. "Our approach has been to work to enable and support African partners," as well as prosecuting some al-Shabab members and supporters, he said.

"The U.S. military has also taken direct action in Somalia against members of al-Qaida - some of them members of al-Shabab - engaged in efforts to carry out terrorist attacks against the United States and U.S. interests," Lalley said.

But that effort in Somalia pales next to, say, the hundreds of U.S. drone strikes against militants in Yemen and Pakistan during the Obama administration.

The Somali rebel group has similarly limited its own target list to Somali officials or troops, and African Union peacekeeping troops, to avoid drawing the U.S. counterterrorism machine into a full-fledged fight, the U.S. officials say. Though headed by hard-core Islamist militants, al-Shabab's more moderate membership has successfully argued to keep the group focused on overthrowing the U.S.-backed Somali government, rather than taking on the mantle of al-Qaida's larger war with the west.

The group did claim responsibility for twin suicide bombings in Uganda in 2010 that killed more than 70 people, but that was seen as a reaction to Uganda providing the bulk of African peacekeeping forces in Somalia.

Similarly, al-Shabab said this weekend's attack was in retribution for Kenyan forces' 2011 push into Somalia.

"You reach the population who says the cost we're bearing for this operation in Somalia is too much," said al-Shabab expert Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, of the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies. "From Shabab's calculus, they may well think it's worth inflicting a heavy cost on Kenya," even if it draws U.S. ire.

But the scale and technical sophistication of the Nairobi attack could signal a change in al-Shabab's aspirations, according to Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., possibly increasing the group's direct threat to the United States. King said the State Department had not initially wanted to declare al-Shabab a terrorist organization because it saw the group focusing on tribal issues within Somalia. It was declared a terror organization in 2008.

"Now, we see, by attacking into Kenya they certainly have an international dimension to them," King said Sunday on ABC's "This Week." `'We're talking about very significant terrorist groups here which are showing a capacity to attack outside of their borders and actually recruit people from here in the United States," said King, who serves on the House Intelligence Committee.

The attack is a recruiting and fundraising shot in the arm for al-Shabab's leader, Mukhtar Abu Zubeyr, who is working to consolidate power after a year spent eliminating rivals, according to Raffaello Pantucci, who has studied the group for West Point's Combating Terrorism Center.

"It's a trifecta for the group," Pantucci said in an interview Sunday. "It brings attention, causes chaos and is successful."

Leaving the violence unanswered could be a further boon for the organization.

Up until now, President Barack Obama secretly has authorized only two commando raids and at least two drone strikes against the al-Qaida linked terrorists in Somalia, while a small U.S. special operations team has advised African peacekeeping troops, as well as helping build a small elite Somali counterterrorism force, according to two former U.S. military officials familiar with the operations.

Two former U.S. counterterrorism officials say the preference has always been to meet specific incidents with a specific response but to avoid getting too deeply involved in the continent of Africa.

"The `don't expand the fight' argument has always won," one said.

They said the number of western citizens among the dead and injured in the weekend incident may change the U.S. calculation.

---

EDITOR'S NOTE - Kimberly Dozier reports on intelligence and counterterrorism for The Associated Press in Washington.

[The Stig]

Original story HERE (http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/23/kenya-attack-nationalities-idUSJ8N0H001E20130923) at Reuters



Kenya says mall gunmen came from several nations

NAIROBI, Sept 23 | Mon Sep 23, 2013 8:03am EDT

(Reuters) - Gunmen involved in an attack on a Nairobi shopping mall came from several countries, a senior Kenyan security official said on Monday, without revealing what those nations were.

"We have an idea who they are, their nationality and even the number," said Julius Karangi, Kenya's chief of general staff, adding that militants were "clearly a multinational collection from all over the world."

"We have also have an idea that this is not a local event. We are fighting global terrorism here and we have sufficient intel (intelligence) to suggest that," he said.

[The Stig]

Original story HERE (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/kenya/10327267/Nairobi-shopping-mall-attack-a-new-source-of-terror.html) at The Telegraph




Nairobi shopping mall attack: a new source of terror

The al-Qaeda group claiming to be behind the Nairobi atrocities was once considered a joke. Now the fear is that al-Shabaab, and its supporters among emigrant Somalis, presents a grave threat to the West. Colin Freeman reports

Colin Freeman

By Colin Freeman

10:17PM BST 22 Sep 2013

Among the raft of al-Qaeda groups that sprung up round the world after 9/11, the Somali branch of the franchise was not one of the more promising start-ups. A direct product of life in the most lawless corner of the planet, al-Shabaab’s followers were considered too violent and quarrelsome even to work with each other, never mind pose a threat to the rest of the world. For all their videos declaring themselves “at Bin Laden’s service”, the joke among Western intelligence agencies was that even al-Qaeda’s high command, like everyone else, would struggle to get anything organised in somewhere as chaotic as Somalia.

Two days ago, on what should have been a pleasant lunchtime in the affluent Nairobi suburb of Westlands, al-Shabaab appeared to prove their doubters wrong. In a disciplined, highly co-ordinated attack, at least a dozen gunmen armed with assault rifles and grenades stormed a shopping mall popular with both locals and expatriates, embarking on an orgy of violence that was both savagely random and chillingly discriminate.

According to witnesses, Muslims — who make up about a third of Kenya’s mainly Christian population – were ordered by the gunmen to leave the scene. Everyone else had to remain behind for the slaughter, which by yesterday had claimed upwards of 68 people, including at least three Britons. As of last night, the terrorists were still holding an unknown number of people hostage, although already the attack is the deadliest on Kenyan soil since al-Qaeda’s 1998 bombing of Nairobi’s US embassy, which killed more than 200.

High though the casualty figures were, the real sense of shock was conveyed by the way it was relayed in real time through digital media. Not only did fleeing shoppers take mobile phone footage of dead bodies and terrified mothers clutching their children, there was a gleeful running commentary from al-Shabaab’s Twitter feed, a 21st-century mouthpiece spitting 8th-century religious venom.

“The Mujahideen entered Westgate mall today at around noon and are still inside the mall,” cackled one post. “What Kenyans are witnessing is retributive justice for crimes committed by their military.”

What the wider world was witnessing, meanwhile, was the coming to age of a group that was all but unknown 10 years ago, but whose sympathisers in Somalia’s vast diasporas – including Britain – now pose as much of a threat to Western interests as any other

al-Qaeda franchise. Nor is al-Shabaab’s influence restricted purely to Somalis – two years ago, the same Kenyan police force that is now besieging the Westlands shopping mall arrested a young Nigerian-born Briton for attempting to cross the Somalia border to join the group. Scotland Yard fears that up to 100 other Britons may have been trained in Somalia with al-Shabaab, raising the prospect of a more organised terror strike in the future.

“If we don’t act now, there could be devastating results,” warned Dr Razaq Raj, an expert on Islamic terrorism at Leeds Metropolitan University. “The international community must think about how to challenge al-Shabaab.”

So who exactly are Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen, to give them their full title? The shortened version of their name translates as “The Youth” — the current generation of which in Somalia has grown up with some of the bleakest prospects on the planet. Most have known nothing but anarchy in their home country, which has been without a properly functioning government since 1991. It is perhaps no surprise, therefore, that many have broken with Somalia’s long-standing tradition of moderate Sufi Islam to embrace the more militant strains exported from the Saudi peninsula, which has set up vast numbers of madrassas in Somalia throughout the past 20 years.

I first heard of al-Shabaab on a trip to Mogadishu in 2006, when a coalition of Islamists – including moderates – had managed to impose peace after nearly a decade-and-a-half of warlord thuggery. As we saw during a visit to a barracks outside the capital, the Islamists’ trick was partly to put warlords’ ex-footsoldiers through religious “bootcamp”, converting yesterday’s murderers, robbers and rapists into tomorrow’s holy warriors.

But alongside the fragile peace came Taliban-style strictures banning music, dancing and most other kinds of fun. Fearing that Somalia’s new Islamist overlords would also turn it into a haven for al-Qaeda, in early 2007 Washington authorised an invasion by neighbouring Ethiopia. Islamist rule was replaced with a transitional government propped up by United Nations mandate, Western cash, and African Union troops from Somalia’s mainly Christian neighbours.

The invasion also had the effect, though, of turning al-Shabaab into an all-out guerrilla movement, divorced from its more moderate allies. It began a vicious insurgency against the transitional government, and also seized control of much of Mogadishu and swathes of southern Somalia, dreaming up edicts as ludicrous as anything imposed by the Taliban.

Teenage girls would be stoned to death for adultery, women were banned from wearing bras on the basis that they showcased the chest, and in 2010, men were even forbidden from watching the South Africa World Cup. In the stern words of al-Shabaab spokesman, “They will not benefit anything or get any experience by watching mad men jumping up and down.”

For children, meanwhile, one of the few acceptable forms of entertainment was Koranic recital contests, for which prizes would include guns, grenades and land mines to use against the “infidel” African Union forces. With the piety also came hypocrisy. While publicly condemning the piracy industry that boomed in Somalia from 2008, al-Shabaab is also thought to have quietly taken fat slices of ransom payments in exchange for turning a blind eye to buccaneers on their turf.

In the last two years, the movement has been somewhat on the back foot, losing control of Mogadishu and alienating even its own followers through its refusal to let foreign aid agencies operate in the country, a policy that caused a widespread famine.

But while its domestic fortunes have waned, its international agenda has grown in tandem with other African militant groups, such as Nigeria’s Boko Haram and Mali’s al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. During the 2010 World Cup, al-Shabaab bombers carried out their first major attack abroad, killing 74 people in an attack in Uganda, which contributed troops to Somalia’s African Union force. As Ahmed Abdi Godane, an al-Shabaab leader implicated in the murder of two British aid workers 10 years ago, put it: “What happened in Kampala is just the beginning.”

Events over the weekend have now proved him right. The fear now, though, is how it might end. Already there are fears of reprisals against Kenya’s Somalis, hundreds of thousands of whom have fled there in recent years precisely to escape al-Shabaab. Sustained terror campaigns there could also devastate the country’s vital tourism sector, destabilising an economy already reeling from the world financial crisis.

Closer to home, though, there will be fears that the success of such a terrorist “spectacular” could act as a recruiting sergeant for impressionable young Somalis in Britain. From London’s Wood Green through to Cardiff’s Grangetown and Manchester’s Cheetham Hill, an estimated 100,000 Somalis are now resident in Britain – many of them jobless, and suffering the same disaffection that drove the Pakistani contingent of the July 7 bombers.

Somali youth leaders have warned me in the past that they fear such an attack is only a question of time – warnings that acquire an added credence when one follows the sneers and insults on al-Shabaab’s English-language Twitter feed. Not only are many of its postings surprisingly literate for a jihadi group based in the Somali bush, they bear numerous jokes, slang and linguistic tics that are distinctly British. Someone, somewhere in Somalia’s British diaspora, apparently finds al-Shabaab’s Nairobi atrocities, however sickening to us, very funny indeed.