FBI agents are investigating whether an American teenager detonated one of two stolen UN vehicles packed with explosives at a peacekeepers base in Somalia, killing 21 people last week.
The probe highlights a disturbing trend of Somali-American youths returning to their ancestral homeland to fight for an Islamic militia that the US government links to al-Qaeda.
Community blogger Abdirahman Warsame said that FBI agents in Seattle, Washington, had visited the home of Mohamed Mohamud on Tuesday to investigate whether 18-year-old Omar, Mohamud’s son, was involved in a twin suicide bombing in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, last Thursday. He spoke to Mohamud at a local mosque on Thursday, two days after FBI agents visited.
Insurgents drove two stolen UN cars into an African Union peacekeeping base and detonated them. Twenty-one people were killed, including 17 Burundian and Ugandan peacekeepers. Markings on the cars meant they were not subject to the usual security checks.
Authorities already have been alarmed by the efforts of Somali Islamic insurgents — some of whom have links to al-Qaeda — targeting young Somali men in the US and other countries with a series of slickly produced Internet videos extolling the virtues of a jihad.
The involvement of Americans raises both the profile of the insurgents’ struggle and fears that insurgents could use the men to attack foreign targets.
Three men, two from the Minneapolis area and one from Seattle, have pleaded guilty in federal court in Minneapolis to terror charges this year after up to 20 Somali-American youths vanished. At least three Minnesota men have died, including one whom authorities say carried out a suicide bombing.
If the Seattle link is confirmed, it would be the second time an American youth has carried out a suicide attack in the war-ravaged Horn of Africa nation.
Warsame said Mohamud had been prepared for the visit by the US federal agents following calls from relatives and Internet reports that an American had been involved in the attack.
“Relatives in Somalia told Mohamed that his son was the bomber who detonated one of the cars. He was very disappointed that his son has died in Somalia,” Warsame said. “He was in mourning.”
The agents took DNA samples from Mohamud, suggested that he turn off his phone line because the number had been published on a Somali Web site and warned him not to speak to the media, he said.
Al-Shabab, a local Islamic militia, said last Thursday’s bombing was in retaliation for a US commando raid on Sept. 14 that killed al-Qaeda operative Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan in southern Somalia.
Experts, however, have said planning such a raid would have taken considerably longer than three days.
Al-Shabab, a powerful Islamist group with foreign fighters in its ranks, claimed responsibility for the last week’s attack. This week it released a video pledging allegiance to al-Qaeda and showing foreign trainers moving among its fighters.
Somali expert Roland Marchal at the Center for International Studies and Research in Paris said if Mohamud was involved in last week’s attack it would strengthen concerns over whether the extremist group might try to target the US.
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