Defense: Somali recruitment occurred at 'house of worship'

By Chris Welch
CNN

MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota (CNN) - Documents unsealed this week by a federal court provide new details into the mysterious disappearance of young Somali-American men from their homes in Minnesota.

According to a document filed by his attorney, Abdifatah Yusuf Isse was "recruited" to take part in terrorist activities, and the recruitment occurred "at a house of worship."

Relatives of some of the missing men have pointed fingers at the Abubakar As-Saddique mosque in Minneapolis, but mosque leaders have repeatedly denied any connection. Its imam, Sheikh Abdirahman Sheikh Omar Ahmed, told CNN Thursday that they were "baseless accusations" and that the mosque is a place of worship that played no part in recruitment efforts.

Isse and Salah Osman Ahmed have been indicted in connection with the alleged recruitment of Somali immigrants to fight with Islamic insurgents in their home country between September 2007 and December 2008. The two are charged with one count each of providing material support to terrorists and conspiracy to kill, kidnap, maim or injure people overseas, the indictment states.

In a motion to amend conditions of detention, filed June 17 and unsealed this week, Isse's attorney, Paul Engh, made an argument against continued imprisonment by the government on the grounds that Isse has no criminal record, that he has almost completed his bachelor's degree in economics, and that he has family in the area. Engh wrote in the motion that Isse attended a training camp run by the al Qaeda-linked Somali insurgent group Al-Shabaab, but he added that his presence there was before Al-Shabaab was officially designated a terrorist organization by the State Department.

Although Engh wrote that Isse was recruited "at a house of worship," he did not identify the location.

According to prosecution documents filed in the case and also unsealed this week, Isse left Minneapolis in December 2007 en route to Somalia, where he was issued a used AK-47 assault rifle and ammunition but never fired it while in Somalia. The document also alleges that he and co-conspirators lived in Al-Shabaab houses and that Isse helped construct an Al-Shabaab training camp.

Attorneys with the prosecution also wrote that Isse traveled to Somalia "as part of an agreement with several other individuals from the Minneapolis area to travel to Somalia and fight against Ethiopian soldiers whom they believed to be occupying the country."

The prosecution document said one of the Minneapolis men who stayed with Isse in Al-Shabaab houses and who traveled with him to the training camp was Shirwa Ahmed. On October 29, 2008, Ahmed participated in a suicide bombing, killing himself and 29 others, which was the first suicide bombing by a naturalized U.S. citizen. It raised red flags throughout the U.S. intelligence community and sparked an investigation by the FBI.

Prosecutors wrote that after returning to the United States, Isse kept in touch with "other individuals who had knowledge of the ongoing conspiracy to recruit Al-Shabaab members" from the Somali population in Minneapolis.

The FBI has been investigating what appears to be a massive recruiting effort by Al-Shabaab in immigrant communities in the United States. More than a dozen young men of Somali descent have disappeared from the Minneapolis area in recent months, and at least three have been killed in Somalia, community leaders have said.

The latest, Jamal Bana, was confirmed dead over the weekend, his family said Sunday. The same day, Somalia's president - a former member of the Islamist movement himself - issued a plea to Somali-Americans not to join the fight in his country.

"I am saying to those young men from abroad: 'Your families fled your home to America because of insecurity. You should not return here to foment violence against your people,' " President Sheik Sharif Ahmed said.

Al-Shabaab has ties to al Qaeda and has recruited foreign fighters to join its battle to overthrow the Somali government, U.S. officials said. It remains entrenched in the northeast and sections south of Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, after fighting that has uprooted more than 200,000 people since early May, according to the United Nations.

FBI Special Agent E.K. Wilson said the number of missing men believed to be in Somalia is "in the 10s," but their recruitment is "a significant concern, and one that we're giving our highest priority." Wilson also said the indictments against Isse and Ahmed are "by no means the end of this case."

"The investigation is ongoing," he added.

Defense attorney Engh seemed to echo that in his court document, writing that his client Isse "will not be the last defendant indicted."

Burhan Hassan, a 17-year-old Somali-American high school student in Minneapolis, went missing eight months ago around the same time as Bana. Last month, his family learned that he was killed in Somalia.

Neither family has any idea why the young males left the United States - where they came as young boys - and Bana's family believes he was being held against his will, said Omar Jamal, the head of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center in Minneapolis.

"Only one time he placed a phone call (in mid-November), he didn't say much," Jamal said. "He spoke as if he was being held hostage. He couldn't be speak freely. They asked him to cut the conversation short."

Many of the missing Somali-Americans are believed to have left for Somalia when Ethiopian forces were still on the ground. Ethiopia invaded Somalia to push the Islamists out of Mogadishu in December 2006, but their presence in the country was an outrage to most Somalis and became a rallying cry for Al-Shabaab.

Ethiopian troops left Somalia earlier this year, leaving Ahmed's weak transitional government to battle the insurgents.

CNN's Brian Todd, Dugald McConnell, David McKenzie and Tricia Escobedo contributed to this report.