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MINNEAPOLIS – Promising both “true brotherhood” and “fun,” several Somali men persuaded fellow immigrants in Minneapolis to return to their East African homeland and take up arms with a terrorist group, according to federal charges unsealed Monday against eight people.
The charges are part of an unfolding federal investigation into the disappearance of as many as 20 young Somali men from Minneapolis over the past two years – most of them U.S. citizens who federal authorities say are guilty of terrorism.
Federal prosecutors say most of the men traveled to Somalia to join the terror group al-Shabab, which the U.S. State Department says has links to al-Qaida.
Ralph S. Boelter, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Minneapolis field office, called the latest round of indictments a “tipping point” in the more than yearlong investigation.
“We have reached momentum and reached a point where we will have full resolution of this case,” Boelter said at a news conference with Minnesota’s U.S. Attorney, B. Todd Jones.
Fourteen people have been charged in the investigation. The eight charged Monday are accused of a mix of recruiting and raising money for the trips and of engaging in terrorist acts in civil war-torn Somalia.
Indictments say some attended terrorist training camps where they received instruction in firing small arms and machine guns, military style tactics and indoctrination in “anti-Ethiopian, anti-American, anti-Israel, and anti-Western beliefs,” according to a federal affidavit.
Two of those charged Monday helped raise money for the trips by approaching unknowing members of Minnesota’s Somali community and soliciting money by telling them it was to pay for trips for young Somali men to travel to Saudi Arabia and study the Quran, the affidavit said.
Of the 14 people indicted, four have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing. Seven are not in custody and are believed to be outside the United States.
Boelter said he did not think that Minnesota Somalis are still being recruited, but he could not say for sure. “I’m confident it’s not happening, but you’re never 100 percent sure there’s no activity,” he said.
FBI Director Robert Mueller has said the case is worrisome because it shows young men raised in the U.S. can be recruited by terrorists overseas, trained to conduct attacks and in some cases killed in the fighting there.
