Omer Abdi Mohamed gets 12 years in prison

Terror recruiter and financier sentenced in Minneapolis

Al-Shabaab has been able to wreak havoc in Somalia because of its combustible mix of money and jihadist ideology.  Unfortunately, some of al-Shabaab’s revenues originated from donations bundled together by terrorist supporters in Minnesota such as Amina Farah Ali and Omer Abdi Mohamed.

Here’s the latest from Minneapolis:

Four men in Minnesota sentenced to prison for aiding Somali rebel group

MINNEAPOLIS | Tue May 14, 2013

(Reuters) – A federal judge sentenced four men to prison on Tuesday for helping recruit young men in Minnesota to travel to Somalia and fight for the militant group al Shabaab.

Investigators believe about 20 young, ethnic Somali men left Minnesota from 2007 to 2009 to go to Somalia to fight for al Shabaab, which the United States designated a terrorist organization.

Three men who cooperated with investigators were each sentenced to three years and a fourth man was sentenced to 12 years in prison.

“These defendants, by providing material support to a designated terrorist organization, broke both the law and the hearts of family members across the Twin Cities,” U.S. Attorney B. Todd Jones said in a statement.

Eighteen men were charged after a four-year investigation. Eight were convicted and the rest are thought to be fugitives or to have been killed in Somalia while fighting for al Shabaab.

On Tuesday, Omer Abdi Mohamed, 28, was sentenced to 12 years in prison after pleading guilty in July 2011 to one count of conspiring to provide material support to co-conspirators who intended to murder, kidnap, or maim Ethiopian and Somali government troops.

Mohamed, of Minneapolis, admitted that he helped recruits get plane tickets and helped to raise money for them to travel to Somalia to fight with al Shabaab in 2007.

Three men who cooperated with investigators were each sentenced to three years in prison by Chief Judge Michael Davis in Minneapolis federal court…

How exactly did Mohamed raise the money for the recruits?  From the trial brief:

…The defendant and his conspirators went to local malls and apartment buildings to ask for money, claiming it would be used to build a mosque or to assist with relief efforts in Somalia. In fact, the money was to pay for the airfare and travel expenses of the group of men to join in the conspiracy…

If these Somali fellows had to do all this legwork to finance their travel to Somalia, it makes one wonder how Tamerlan Tsarnaev secured funding to travel to Dagestan.  Public benefits and proceeds from casual drug sales may have been insufficient, and Tsarnaev didn’t have access to community donations in the same way the Minnesota Somalis have had.  Did Tsarnaev’s in-laws unwittingly pay for his trip?

Terror finance termagant finally sentenced

Local Somali activist says financier “deserves the Nobel Prize”

Amina Farah Ali was convicted in 2011 of supporting terrorism by collecting donations and transferring them to al-Shabaab for jihad in Somalia.  Her sentencing took place last week.  Ali could have been sent to prison for 195 years, but the federal judge Michael Davis imposed a 20-year sentence.

Despite Judge Davis’s lenience toward Ali, CAIR is filing a complaint against him over questions he asked her during sentencing (h/t @1389).

The Minneapolis Star Tribune recorded the reaction from the Somali community following the sentence.  Activist Abdinasir Abdi declared “Amina was a good woman, a mother, a teacher, educator, humanitarian worker. I think she deserves the Nobel Prize because she is a great humanitarian.”  Other Somali leaders blamed the situation on U.S. foreign policy, and one woman brandished a sign saying that Ali is her hero:

Ali’s partner in crime, Hawo Mohamed Hassan, was sentenced to 10 years.  The Tribune also has the report:

Two Rochester women get 10, 20 years for aiding Somalia terrorists

Article by: RANDY FURST , Star Tribune

Updated: May 17, 2013

One got 10 years in prison, the other 20 for funneling money to a group fighting in Somalia.

Two Rochester women were sentenced to federal prison Thursday for their roles in funneling money to an organization the U.S. government has called a terrorist group fighting in Somalia.

Hawo Mohamed Hassan, 66, who got 10 years in prison, and Amina Farah Ali, 36, who got 20, were the last of nine people sentenced in federal court in Minneapolis this week.

The group was the first set of defendants sent to prison from Minneapolis in this country’s largest anti-terrorism investigation since Sept. 11, 2001.

U.S. Chief Judge Michael Davis handed down the sentences before a courtroom packed with the defendants’ families and members of the Somali-American community.

The drama capped a federal investigation that lasted more than four years in which U.S. authorities sought to shut down a recruiting effort that lured more than 20 young men to Somalia, several of whom died fighting or in suicide bombings.

The women, both U.S. citizens who came here from Somalia, were convicted in 2011 of conspiring to provide material support to Al-Shabab in fundraising in Rochester that prosecutors have called “a deadly pipeline” of money and fighters from the United State to Somalia.

They have had wide support in the Twin Cities’ Somali-American community, and many in the courtroom were stunned by the sentences, especially the 20-year sentence for Ali.

Hassan Mohamud, a St. Paul imam, said he believes the sentences were too long and that both women should have been released.

“All they did was aid the poor and the orphans,” he said.

But prosecutors said it was clear from the phone conversations they monitored that the women knew they were raising money for Al-Shabab, a group labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department in 2008.

While Ali said she never knew that funds she raised were going to Al-Shabab, Hassan claimed that she came to realize the organization was getting the money and broke with Ali, preferring that the money go to set up a senior health center.

But prosecutor Jeff Paulsen cited telephone wiretaps that he said showed there had been no rift between the two and that Hassan had a financial investment in the health center and planned to continue to work with Ali.

Ali, sentenced first, denied she did anything wrong. She said she had no knowledge that the money she collected went to Al-Shabab.

Asked by Davis what she knew about Al-Qajda, she indicated she knew nothing about it.

Her attorney, Dan Scott, said “she chose the wrong horse,” adding, “She thought she was doing good work. She was wrong.”

Defendants in the Somali cases have argued that Ethiopia invaded Somalia to support a newly created transitional government that lacked support from the Somali people. They have said that their clients backed the resistance to the invasion.

However, prosecutors argued that the transitional government was recognized by foreign nations, so any support for Al-Shabab, which was fighting the invasion, was against U.S. law as well as support for a terrorist group.

Steven Ward, who prosecuted the case, said Ali was heard on a wiretap supporting Al-Shabab, saying she supported a suicide bombing and “let the civilians die”…

Somali bank resumes semi-annual, half-million dollar payments to al-Shabaab

An international Somali-based financial institution is reported to have resumed its recurring transfers of $500,000 twice a year to the al-Shabaab terrorist organization.  The longstanding transfers of money from Dahabshiil to al-Shabaab had allegedly stopped temporarily during a dispute between the bank and the jihadist group.

The allegation that payments have resumed is based on Somali radio and Internet sources, but the text of the news report appears to be available only on YouTube, which is one of the few web outlets that has escaped Dahabshiil’s history of attempts to eliminate negative Internet search.
 

Dahabshiil pays half a million dollar to Al Shabab as a tax- Report

Published on Apr 29, 2013

Spokesman of Al Shabab’s Somalia Mukhtar Robow faction told the media that the dispute they’ve had with Dahabshiil has now been resolved.

Al Shabab’s spokesman for operations Abdul aziz abu Musab said Al Shabab accepted the payment of the taxes they used to pay them which is $500,000 for every six months.

“Dahabshil renders services to the infidel government and Christian organizations, therefore we had an agreement five years ago which is basically for them to pay half a million dollars in every six months” said abu Musab.

Radio Al Andalus, the mouthpiece of Al Shabab said that the movement took necessary steps against Dahabshiil when the company refused to pay the tax as agreed.

Dahabshiil is facing a lawsuit pertaining to funding terrorist in the Netherlands. Abu Musab’s statement means a clear testimony that Dahabshiil finances terrorist organization.

Furthermore, Al Shabaab Somalia is facing an internal conflict within the leadership. With this regard, it is believed that Dahabshiil has sided with the Godane faction. The Indian Ocean News letter wrote about Dahabshiil’s setbacks with the headline “Series of hard blows for Dahabshiil”.

Dahabshiil has been the forefront of the money transfer business for a long time, but now the company is struggling with numerous difficulties, specially when Al Shabab closed its branches in Hiiraan, Galgaduud, Bay and Bakool regions. On top of that, Al Shabab has recently blasted the HQ of Dahabshiil in Mogadishu ,Somalia which killed head of the company’s security.

Experts say Dahabshiil is quite similar to sheikhs of Al-itisam or Al-itihad. Both organizations used to support Al Shabab but later on decided to revoke their support. Dahabshiil will be forced to pay the extortion money as long as Al Shabab is in Somalia. The credibility of the news of Dahabshiil’s payments to Al Shabab can be seen through Al Shabab’s internet portal somalimemo.netwhich has been writing stories favorable to Dahabshiil in the last couple of days. The website also posted Dahabshiil’s advertisement at the top of the homepage.

Sources: Kalshaale.com, Khaatumo State Of Somalia, Buhodle City Website.

A Minneapolis-based bank, U.S. Bancorp, established a new relationship with Dahabshiil in April to facilitate remittances from Somalis in Minnesota to Somalia.

Terror bankrollers bombed for stiffing al-Shabaab

The Somali-based Dahabshiil money transfer company normally pays the terrorist group al-Shabaab half a million dollars annually, according to a new report from the Dutch-Somali Suna Times.  This year, however, due to sagging business, Dahabshiil could only afford to offer al-Shabaab $100,000.  Al-Shabaab threatened to attack the financial institution if payment wasn’t made in full, and followed through on the threat by bombing Dahabshiil’s offices in Mogadishu on April 2.

This version of events differs from the explanation by the bank and Reuters that the Dahabshiil was being threatened by al-Shabaab for working with international aid agencies.

On its website, the Suna Times displays documents showing money transfers to the current emir of al-Shabaab.  The documents came from whistle-blowers at a separate website called WaagaCusub.  These reports may reinforce the claims of two East African musicians who say they have received death threats for singing about Dahabshiil’s role in financing terrorism (accusations which legal counsel for Dahabshiil has previously contacted Money Jihad to deny).

Meanwhile, Minneapolis-based U.S. Bancorp is finalizing a partnership with Dahabshiil to expand remittance options for Somali immigrants in the U.S. to wire money to Somalia.  Continuing to pursue such an agreement in light of the Shabaab-funding revelation would be a ghastly decision that U.S. Bancorp would have to explain to its customers and federal financial regulators.  It would also put U.S. Bancorp at odds with all other Minnesota financial institutions which have ceased Somali remittance programs due to the risk of financing terrorism.

Somalia:  Secret Dahabshiil documents of Al-Shabaab Finance

Monday, April, 15 2013

The documents include the bank accounts of al-Shabab leader Ibrahim Jama Mead (Ibrahim al-Afghani) and former Emir Ahmed Godane as well as Muktar Robow and Hassan Dahir Aweys.

MOGADISHU (Sunatimes)- Whistleblowing website WaagaCusub (New Dawn in Somali) has published hundreds of Dahabshiil financial and secret documents dating as far back as 2004.

The website, founded by Somali investigative journalist, Dahir Alasow, has promised to release more damning documents in the near future.

The new records were released just few hours after Paris-based Africa Intelligence said the largest money transfer company in Somalia was struggling to stay in business. As well as trying to cover its links to al Qaeda affiliated al-Shabab, the bank was recently forced to close most of its branches in central and southern Somalia due to lack of funds and security threats.

The paper said following the 2nd April explosion outside its Mogadishu headquarters in the Bakara market, the funds transfer company closed more than 10 branches in Hiraan, Bay and Bakool regions.

Furthermore, the Indigo Publications owned paper said Western intelligence were carefully monitoring the financial activities of the bank.

Al Shabab has threatened to bomb Dahabshiil after the bank refused to pay its annual $500,000 support to the terror group due to Western pressure. The Hargeisa-based bank instead offered to secretly channel them $100,000, which al Shabab rejected.

Now WaagaCusub says it has sufficient proof and documents supporting Dahabshiil’s financial links to the outlawed group.

The documents include the bank accounts of al-Shabab leader Ibrahim Jama Mead (Ibrahim al-Afghani) and former Emir Ahmed Godane as well as Muktar Robow and Hassan Dahir Aweys.

The files show that between 23 September 2010 and 11 of January 2013, the current Emir al-Afghani received USD$4,326,727.50 through his account in Dahabshiil.

Similarly, Ahmed Abdi Aw-Mohamud (Ahmed Godane aka Abu Zubeir) received over USD$4, 415, 411 from 31 September 2004 to 3 January 2013 of this year.

The website has said it will release more cables on the financial history and activities of the payment firm.

Meanwhile, investors and remittance receivers have been rushing to Dahabshiil branches to withdraw their funds since the April explosion. Many said they fear for their own safety security scare while others are worried that Western governments might close down the bank.

Dahabshiil has been trying to silence the Somali media for many years in an effort to conceal its financial activities and materials. It has on several occasions taken Dahir Alasow to criminal courts while threatening many with lawsuits.

In July 2012 it made international headlines when Anonymous hacked into their databases publishing thousands of account numbers, names and details online thousands of account numbers, names and details online.

The hack activist group accused Dahabshiil of aiding Somalia’s al Shabab.

Somali conspirators found guilty as charged

San Diego imam and three cohorts laundered money, financed terror

Two of the four financiers: Imam Mohamed Mohamud (left) and Issa Doreh (right)

Many readers are probably already aware of the conviction as it has received fairly extensive print news coverage.  The best report on the Feb. 22 verdicts comes from the FBI itself:

San Diego Jury Convicts Four Somali Immigrants of Providing Support to Foreign Terrorists

Defendants Sent Money to al Shabaab in Somalia

SAN DIEGO, CA—A federal jury today convicted four Somali immigrants, including a popular imam at a City Heights mosque, of conspiring to provide material support to the terrorist group al Shabaab.

The jury found that the four men—Basaaly Saeed Moalin, a cabdriver in San Diego; Issa Doreh, a worker at a money transmitting business that was the conduit for moving the funds; Mohamed Mohamed Mohamud, the imam at a mosque frequented by the city’s immigrant Somali community; and Ahmed Nasiri Taalil Mohamud, a cabdriver from Anaheim—conspired to raise money for the foreign terrorist organization and send it back to Somalia.

During the three-week trial, the United States presented evidence that Moalin, Mohamud, Doreh, and Nasir conspired to provide money to al Shabaab, a violent and brutal militia group in Somalia that engages in suicide bombings, targets civilians for assassination, and uses improvised explosive devices. In February 2008, the U.S. Department of State formally designated al Shabaab as a foreign terrorist organization.

At trial, the jury listened to dozens of the defendants’ intercepted telephone conversations, including many conversations between defendant Moalin and Aden Hashi Ayrow, one of al Shabaab’s most prominent leaders who was subsequently killed in a missile strike on May 1, 2008. In those calls, Ayrow implored Moalin to send money to al Shabaab, telling Moalin that it was “time to finance the Jihad.” Ayrow told Moalin, “You are running late with the stuff. Send some and something will happen.” In the calls played for the jury, Ayrow repeatedly asked Moalin to reach out to defendant Mohamud—the imam—to obtain funds for al Shabaab.

According to the evidence presented at trial, the defendants conspired to transfer the funds from San Diego to Somalia through the Shidaal Express, a now-defunct money transmitting business in San Diego.

The United States also presented a recorded telephone conversation in which defendant Moalin gave the terrorists in Somalia permission to use his house in Mogadishu, Somalia, telling Ayrow that “after you bury your stuff deep in the ground, you would, then, plant the trees on top.” Prosecutors argued at trial that Moalin was offering a place to hide weapons…

Basaaly Moalin, the most malicious and vocal of member of the conspiracy, could be sentenced to a maximum of 80 years in prison, with his co-defendants facing shorter terms.

The disturbing (but frankly unsurprising) involvement of an imam in the conspiracy is not the only important takeaway from this trial.

The critical lesson illustrated by this case is that remittances to Somalia are fraught with risk; ordinary Somali customers undoubtedly used the services of Shidaal Express prior to its closure.  Even customers who had no intention of funding terrorism supplemented Shidaal’s business and indirectly aided al-Shabaab.

Shidaal Express in San Diego

This is why banks have to make very careful decisions about money services businesses (MSBs) that they may take on as commercial clients.  Banks must evaluate whether the risk of supporting terrorism is too high to continue doing business with a particular individual or MSB.

Why on earth would anybody still criticize banks in Minnesota for ceasing to providing money transfer services to Somalia?  The evidence has become far too clear that Somali remittances bear an unacceptable risk of being siphoned off for terrorist purposes.

IPT has previously reported on the details of the money transfers in the San Diego conspiracy, which further illustrate the fundamental riskiness of the Somali remittance business:

The men used hawalas—both registered and unregistered—to move money from the United States to African countries. Two of the hawalas identified—Shidaal Express, Inc.,and North American Money Transfer, Inc.—have a history of money laundering and terror-financing violations, public records show.

Take, for example, North American Money Transfer (NAMT) which is incorporated in Georgia, but has branches in Missouri and elsewhere throughout the United States. In August 2009, the Justice Department charged the company with a series of financial crimes, including operating as an unlicensed money transmitting business in the State of Michigan. According to the indictment, between Jan. 3, 2008 and April 15, 2009, “NAMT wire transferred approximately $12,820,000 from the United States to Africa Horn in the United Arab Emirates, for distribution to the intended recipients in Somalia and other countries located in the Horn of Africa.”

Over a period of 10 months, the defendants in the cases announced Wednesday raised and transferred approximately $26,000 from various locations within the United States to Somalia. Separating the payments into 20 separate transactions, each of them were structured to evade the $3,000 limit that would have required the hawala to verify a name and address of the sender through a photo identification.

Bank offers $2-3m bounties on singers’ heads

UAE-based money transfer business accused of plotting contract killing of two East African musicians

The Dahabshiil money transfer company is promising a $3 million reward for the murder of Djibouti singer Nimo Djama after singing about Dahabshiil’s role in financing terrorism.  This allegation by Djama herself was nearly impossible to find in English-language print media (or even by the blogosphere) when the story began circulating among Somali sources last fall.

One outlet that did report on it was the Somali-Dutch news site, the Suna Times, excerpted below with some light editing for readability:

Dahabshiil—Facts, Violations, and Terrorism

The Djiboutian singer Nimo Djama accused Dahabshiil company of putting a three million dollar bounty for her death.

“Dahabshiil Bank, Ottawa branch has been assigned to assassinate me. They have received three million dollars to carry out the assassination. Dahabshil or Dhiigshiil wants to kill me. I’ve informed the Canadian law enforcement agencies. They installed cameras in my home,” said Nimo Djama in an audio interview on Oct 13, 2012.

Nimo Djama, aka the Mother of Djiboutian Singers, is a popular figure, and was part of the independence struggle in her country, but fled from Djibouti after being arrested by the administration of president Guelleh.

The well-known Somali singer Sado Ali Warsame who overthrown [sic] said Barre regime with her songs also accused Dahabshiil of putting a two million dollar bounty for her death, shortly after she released a song called Dahabshiil ha dhigan (“Don’t Deposit with Dahabshiil”).

Concern over Dahabshiil’s threat, which lost around 70% of its customers, resulted [in] reinforcement of Sado’s security…

A written description accompanying a video published on YouTube on Feb. 11 reveals further details about the hit ordered against Ms. Warsame (whose name may also be written as Saado Cali Warsame):

A Somali super star singer sings against Dahabshiil money transfer

A top Somali super star Sado Ali Warsame, had released an album against the Dahabshiil money transfer which she warns the people to send their money to the company because of what the singer called ‘a linkage to tribalism and extremism’.

The nationalist icon of Somalia top ten super stars, Sado Ali Warsame, who is well respected for her role in fighting against the military dictatorship through her cultural-rich music, is now taking the platform to challenge against all the actors against the pan-Somalia.

Her new song “Ha dhigan Dhiigshiil” which means don’t send your money through Dahabshiil, is a great challenge to the company which currently lost a court case against a well-known investigative journalist Dahir Abdulle Alasow in Breda Netherlands after the company accused the reporter of humiliating figures in the company, goodwill defamation and accusation related to Dahabshiil’s attempt to assassinate singer Sado Warsame.

The song relates Dahabshiil to Alshabab [al-Shabaab], a militant group allied to Alqaeda [Al Qaeda] which rules much of Southern Somalia with brutal laws, and a slow genocide going on in the Sool, Sanag and Ceyn (SSC) regions in Somalia by Somaliland forces, which Warsame is originally from.

Dahabshiil rejected the accusation and sued the investigative reporter whose website waagacusub.com published the articles relating Dahabshiil attempt to assassinate the artist Warsame and the linkage to the terror group and the slow genocide in SSC regions.

But the judge in Breda district court ruled out Dahabshiil’s argument and ordered the reporter to keep doing his job freely, and states the accusation as baseless.

The company’s name Dahabshiil means Goldsmith, while the singer calls it in the song as Dhiigshiil, which means Bloodsmith, a previous name of the company in early 2000s, which the company owners refute to be called now for their business goodwill.

The song had attracted a big number of listeners who clicked more than 30,000 times on one link in waagacusub website and the controversial comments on the songs divided the public opinion.

A comment with anonymous person says, “The song is true, Dahabshiil feeds Alshabab, and I agree that we don’t need to send our money to it”…

It’s not just an anonymous person on Youtube, or even an enterprising Somali-Dutch reporter.  A presiding judge at a 2005 hearing in Guantanamo Bay told detainee Mohammed Sulaymon Barre, “I am convinced that your branch of the Dahabshiil company was used to transfer money for terrorism.”

Now, we leave you with a music video by Warsame.  She sings about peace, national unity, satirizes the terrorists, and tells the truth about the financing of extremists.  For this she gets death threats from Dubai?

UPDATE—FEB. 28, 2013:

Money Jihad has again (see comment below) been contacted by legal counsel for Dahabshiil, who makes the following response to this post:

Dahabshiil refutes the allegations made about it in this article in the strongest possible terms. The allegations are absurd and entirely false. For the avoidance of doubt, Dahabshiil has no involvement whatsoever in violence or terrorism of any kind.Dahabshiil considers these allegations to be highly defamatory and has accordingly commenced legal proceedings in The Netherlands to restrain further publication of them by their original author [of the Suna Times].

By way of background, Dahabshiil is a major international financial organisation, founded in 1970. Dahabshiil operates in approximately 150 countries across the world (including the USA and most European territories) with over 5,000 employees. Dahabshiil has a large and loyal customer base and a number of major international organisations rely on Dahabshiil to provide payment services for their staff, contractors, government institutions and partner NGOs. Dahabshiil has its headquarters in the United Kingdom where it is regulated by the Financial Services Authority.

For further general information about Dahabshiil , please visit Dahabshiil’s website at www.Dahabshiil.com

For media enquiries, please e-mail news@dahabshiil.com

Piracy still a viable business model

It is remarkable that “In the past six months, there has been no successful hijacking of a merchant vessel off Somalia.”  This is thanks largely to more armed guards on merchant vessels and the presence of NATO forces.

Yet, warns the NATO commander, “the business model is still intact” for Somali pirates, who have soaked corporations, insurance companies, and their governments of hundreds of millions of dollars.  The opportunity here is to build on recent successes and bring the Somali pirates to their knees once and for all.  It’s not the time for the NATO fleet to sail home yet.

From Reuters:

World must not let up pressure on Somali pirates – NATO

By Adrian Croft

BRUSSELS | Mon Dec 17, 2012

(Reuters) – Pirate attacks off the coast of Somalia have dropped sharply this year but piracy remains a viable “business model” and could bounce back if international naval forces in the region are cut back, the outgoing commander of the NATO mission said on Monday.

Hijackings of ships in a vast area of the Indian Ocean off Somalia have dropped to seven in the first 11 months of this year compared to 24 in the whole of 2011, although Dutch Commodore Ben Bekkering said 136 hostages were still being held.

In the past six months, there has been no successful hijacking of a merchant vessel off Somalia, said Bekkering, who has handed over command of NATO’s Ocean Shield anti-piracy force to Italian Rear-Admiral Antonio Natale.

Pirates operating from the Somali coast have raked in hundreds of millions of dollars in ransoms from hijacking ships, leading NATO, the European Union and other nations to dispatch warships to patrol the area.

Merchant ships responded with tighter security measures, including greater use of private armed security guards.

Bekkering attributed the decline in piracy to the naval patrols, the heightened security on the merchant ships, putting suspected pirates on trial outside Somalia and the Somali authorities’ counter-piracy campaigns.

Some pirates had abandoned their camps, seeing them as too risky, and taken refuge in villages, he said.

But the gains in fighting piracy were reversible if the world’s navies eased up on their efforts, he said.

“I am convinced, if navy ships would disappear, the piracy model would still be intact,” he told a news conference.

“Yes, they don’t deploy that much to sea but the leadership of the piracy is still there and if they hold their breath for a little while and nations (take) their navy ships back, I am pretty sure that the business model is still intact.”

HOSTAGES

The financial crisis has led many Western countries to slash their defence budgets, but Bekkering said he saw no sign NATO nations’ commitment to the anti-piracy operation was waning.

In March, the alliance extended its counter-piracy mission until the end of 2014.

Bekkering said about 16 to 18 ships from all international forces were on patrol in the Indian Ocean at any one time and this was the “bare minimum” needed to patrol such a vast area.

Pirates are still holding five ships with 136 hostages of various nationalities…

Jihad financier rejoiced when Burundians died

“Oh my God! God is great! Wonderful! I swear to God, you told me something to be happy about,” Nima Yusuf exclaimed upon hearing that Burundian peacekeeping troops had been killed in a “martyrdom operation” she supported.

All told, Yusuf gave $1,450 to al-Shabaab jihadists to terrorize Somalia.  She was sentenced to eight years in prison which the San Diego Union-Tribune describes as “less than the maximum 15 years she could have received, falling somewhere in the middle of the five years the defense sought, and the decade prosecutors said they wanted.”

It’s unclear why prosecutors didn’t seek the maximum penalty.  Al-Shabaab is working to overthrow the government of Somalia, impose sharia law, and to wage perpetual jihad against their neighbors.  Knowingly funding a terrorist organization like that deserves firmness, not compromise.

From Fox 5 San Diego:

Woman sentenced for bankrolling terrorists

A San Diego woman who conspired to provide material support to a terrorist organization based in Somalia was sentenced Tuesday to eight years in federal prison.

As part of her guilty plea, Nima Yusuf, 25, admitted that she conspired with four others — identified in court papers as Mohamed Abdullahi Hassan, Abdisalan Hussein Ali, Cabdulaahi Faarax and Abdiweli Yassin Isse — to provide support to al-Shabaab in the form of money and personnel to work under the direction of the terrorist organization.

Yusuf was arrested in November 2010. She admitted sending $1,450 to the men, who were then fighting in Somalia for al-Shabaab, and to lying to federal agents about her financial support for the fighters.

According to court documents, Yusuf understood and supported al-Shabaab’s military efforts.

FBI Special Agent in Charge Daphne Hearn said law enforcement is committed to keeping the country and communities safe.

“We will aggressively pursue those who choose to send money or other resources to organizations that support terrorist acts,” Hearn said.”This is a serious crime against our country and our citizenry, and those who engage in these practices will meet the consequences of their actions in our judicial system.”

In a March 2010 phone call, Yusuf suggested that America was responsible for the 9/11 attacks and expressed hope for an even greater catastrophe in the future, according to court documents.

As in when she exclaimed “’Oh! It will be happening again. Trust me, more this time it will be double … triple their deaths. (Laughter.)”?

Ivory terror: elephant bloodbath funds jihadists

Sudanese Arab militiamen and Somali al-Shabaab terrorists are financing their jihad from poaching raids against the endangered wildlife of their mostly Christian neighbors.

The janjaweed poachers use the profits from massacring the African elephant to continue their massacres against black Africans in Darfur.  The common link is their utter disregard for life and for the rule of law.

From the Africa Review on Nov. 17:

Cameroon deploys crack unit to foil Sudanese poachers

Cameroon’s Special Forces have been deployed to foil an imminent raid by Sudanese poachers who for eight weeks earlier this year slaughtered half the population of elephants for their ivory at one of the country’s wildlife reserves.

The poachers have been attempting to take park guards in northern Cameroon by surprise by exploiting greater ground cover that has sprouted in the rainy season, according to international conservation body World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), which said it had been informed by high ranking officials of the Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR) on Friday.

“This is the same group of poachers that in early 2012 travelled more than 1,000km on horseback from northern Sudan across the Central African Republic and Chad to kill over 300 elephants in the Bouba N’Djida National Park in northern Cameroon,” WWF said.

The heavily armed and well coordinated poachers, who had told local villagers of their plans to kill as many elephants as possible, claimed they had killed as much as 650 out of some 1,000 that roamed the park.

The elephant population in Cameroon and in central Africa is estimated to have been halved, mainly by poachers, between 1995 and 2007 with the number of elephants killed still on the rise…

The article does not precisely identify whom the Sudanese poachers are or for what they will use the ivory profits.  But a story from the New York Times in September explained that Sudan’s janjaweed, the Arab supremacists who bear responsibility for the genocide against black Africans in Darfur, are offenders in the illegal ivory trade:

Several Sudanese ivory traders and Western officials said that the infamous janjaweed militias of Darfur were also major poachers. Large groups of janjaweed — the word means horseback raider — were blamed for killing thousands of civilians in the early 2000s, when Darfur erupted in ethnic conflict. International law enforcement officials say that horseback raiders from Darfur wiped out thousands of elephants in central Africa in the 1980s. Now they suspect that hundreds of janjaweed militiamen rode more than 600 miles from Sudan and were the ones who slaughtered at least 300 elephants in Bouba Ndjida National Park in Cameroon this past January, one of the worst episodes of elephant slaughter recently discovered.

In 2010, Ugandan soldiers, searching for Mr. Kony in the forests of the Central African Republic, ran into a janjaweed ivory caravan. “These guys had 400 men, pack mules, a major camp, lots of weapons,” a Western official said. A battle erupted and more than 10 Ugandans were killed.

“It just shows you the power of poaching, how much money you can make stacking up the game,” the official said.

How much and for what purpose?  Der Spiegel reports that janjaweed poachers use the proceeds for arms:  “The millions of dollars their poaching raid must have brought in will allow them to replenish their weapons stores.”

Although no Somalis were mentioned in the latest Cameroon hunt, the New York Times also identified al-Shabaab as an ivory poaching participant:

Perhaps no country in Africa is as lawless as Somalia, which has languished for more than 20 years without a functioning central government, spawning Islamist militants, gunrunners, human traffickers and modern-day pirates. Ivory has entered this illicit mix.

Several Somali elders said that the Shabab, the militant Islamist group that has pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda, recently began training fighters to infiltrate neighboring Kenya and kill elephants for ivory to raise money.

One former Shabab associate said that the Shabab were promising to “facilitate the marketing” of ivory and have encouraged villagers along the Kenya-Somalia border to bring them tusks, which are then shipped out through the port of Kismayo, a notorious smuggling hub and the last major town the Shabab still control.

“The business is a risk,” said Hassan Majengo, a Kismayo resident with knowledge of the ivory trade, “but it has an exceptional profit.”

Read more details of al-Shabaab’s involvement in the ivory trade here.

Sadly, the Islamist culture and tradition of raiding, pillaging, plundering and exploitation of natural resources and property is alive and well.

UN charcoal purchases enrich Al-Shabaab

Money Jihad has been reporting for a year on how charcoal sales in Somalia help fill the coffers of the terrorist group al-Shabaab (see prior coverage here and here).  The United Nations was one of the first entities to publicize this phenomenon.  Ironically, it is the U.N. that has turned out to be one of the larger institutional buyers of Somali charcoal.

How can you beat the jihadists if you’re funding both sides of the conflict?  This is an outrage.  Please read this important article that hasn’t received nearly so much attention as it should.  From the Telegraph on Sept. 24:

Somalia’s Islamist war chest being boosted by UN funds

The war-chest of Somalia’s al-Qaeda-allied Islamists is likely being boosted with United Nations funds used to buy charcoal from areas the terror group controls, The Daily Telegraph has learnt.

By Mike Pflanz, Nairobi

Al-Shabaab pays for weapons and fighters with the £800,000 a month it earns from charcoal sales and exports, now banned under a British-sponsored UN Security Council resolution adopted at the London Conference on Somalia in February.

The business has become the group’s “most lucrative source of income”, according to the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea.

But the UN has since April been buying 52 tonnes of charcoal a week for the kitchens of peacekeeping forces in Mogadishu, and one Somalia expert said it was “highly unlikely” that the deal was “not at least indirectly benefiting” the terrorists.

The contract, worth close to $1 million annually, also directly spurs the destruction of southern Somalia’s last remaining tree cover, worsening conditions that cause drought.

A spokesman for UNSOA, the United Nations Support Office for the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia (Amisom), said he was “unable to confirm” that supplies did not come from Kismayo, al-Shabaab’s remaining stronghold.

African Union forces this week closed in on the port city ahead of an expected offensive to push the Islamists out. Senior commanders are said to have fled already, and 10,000 civilians have also left, UNHCR reported yesterday [FRI].

The Daily Telegraph has seen an UNSOA Purchase Order for $17,722.50 (£10,950) for 52,125kg of charcoal due for delivery on August 31, among the most recent of the deliveries.

It was to be sent to Ugandan and Burundian peacekeeping troops based at Mogadishu’s airport and its university. The two countries’ soldiers make up the majority of Amisom’s 17,000-strong contingent in Somalia.

“It’s highly unlikely that Shabaab will not at least indirectly benefit,” said Andrews Atta-Asamoah, Horn of Africa analyst for the Institute for Security Studies in South Africa.

“It’s not possible for that much charcoal to come only from areas the government controls. Even if Shabaab is not directly selling the charcoal, once money enters the system in south-central Somalia, Shabaab always takes its share.”

Hyena meat trade profits al-Shabaab

Mmm… tastes like chicken

Never mind that the hyena is a scavenger that most Muslims regard as unclean.  Al-Shabaab reasons that as long as the revenues are used for jihad, that makes it permissible under Islam.

The terrorists’ gain is the hyenas’ loss.  But on the bright side, this suggests that al-Shabaab is struggling financially.  Read all about it.