This is not the first time something like this happens, and I highly doubt it will be the last…
MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota (CNN) — Last month, 17-year-old Burhan Hassan told his family he was catching a ride to school with a friend. He then vanished.
His mother spoke to her son just a few days ago over the phone. To her shock, she says, he told her he was no longer in the United States.
“Mom, I’m in Somalia! Don’t worry about me; I’m OK,” the mother quoted her son as saying.
Details of how he got there and what has transpired in his life since his November disappearance are sketchy. His mother, who agreed to be identified only as Amina, says her son has clearly changed.
“He was different,” she said of his attitude on the phone.
Hassan is one of more than a dozen young men of Somali descent — many U.S. citizens — to have disappeared from Minneapolis over the past six months, according to federal law enforcement authorities. Authorities say young men have also disappeared in Boston, Massachusetts; Portland, Maine; and Columbus, Ohio.
“A number of young Somali men have traveled from throughout the United States to include Minneapolis to Somalia, potentially to fight,” said FBI Special Agent E.K. Wilson.
Amina speaks about her son in the past tense, almost as if he were dead. She worries about him night and day.
“Now that he’s gone, I can’t sleep,” she said.
The fear among the Somali community in Minneapolis is that their young men are being preyed upon and recruited to fight jihad, or holy war, in Somalia. Some have even called to tell their parents not to look for them.
“Those I talked to were completely shocked and dismayed as to what happened. They were completely in disbelief,” said Omar Jamal of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center, based in St. Paul, Minnesota.
The shock is magnified by what happened to one of them: Authorities say a 27-year-old named Shirwa Ahmed blew himself up in an apparent suicide bombing in northern Somalia in October.
I feel for the poor woman, but am not surprised that a muslim wants to go off and fight for allah.
Read the rest.
Related posts:
- Yet another Minnesota muslim joins the jihad in Somalia
- Another Somali-American killed waging jihad in Somalia
- Family of dead American-Somali terrorist wonders: Who radicalized our son?
- Minneapolis Muslim Blows Himself up in Somalia Attack
- Minnesota – muslims gone wild attack hospital workers
- Alabama teen converted to islam, guess what happened next…
- Somali pirates “smuggling” Al Qaeda terrorists into Somalia
- Somalia: Armed gunmen kidnap French security advisors
- Somalia quickly falling under al Qaeda’s control
- Somali pirates hi-jack Saudi oiltanker
