seattletimes:Seattle's Somali community not included in latest terror indictments

Seattle's Somali community not included in latest terror indictments

While the FBI in Seattle has warned of al-Shabab recruiting among members of the city's large Somali community — second only to Minneapolis-St. Paul — none of the indictments or charges announced Thursday were filed here.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2012547354_somalialocal06.html

While the FBI in Seattle has warned of al-Shabab recruiting among members of the city's large Somali community — second only to Minneapolis-St. Paul's — none of the indictments or charges announced Thursday were filed here.

One of those Seattle recruits — Omar Mohamud, a Somali American — reportedly drove a truck bomb into a peacekeepers base in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, in September 2009, killing 21 peacekeepers and himself.

In July 2009, a 25-year-old graduate of Roosevelt High School, Abdifatah Yusuf Isse, pleaded guilty in Minnesota to providing material support to al-Shabab. His lawyer said he had been recruited as a suicide bomber and underwent training in Somalia. Isse's mother, who lives in Seattle, told The Seattle Times at the time that he had been recruited in a mosque in Minneapolis.

In 2008, Ruben Shumpert, of Seattle, an African-American convert to Islam, reportedly was killed in a U.S.-supported rocket attack near Mogadishu after he fled to Somalia, in part, to avoid prison after pleading guilty to gun and counterfeiting charges. He reportedly was fighting for a group linked to al-Shabab and al-Qaida in Somalia, according to news reports and federal officials.

While here, Shumpert was associated with a now-closed Rainier Valley barber shop believed by federal agents to be a hotbed of radical Islamic teachings.