Mike Levine of FoxNews has a story,  “Somali-Americans Accused of Al Qaeda Ties Indicted on Terror Charges, Sources Say” about possible indictments  against Somalis in Minneapolis who were under Federal investigation for recruiting American Somali youths to join Al Shabaab, the al Qaeda affiliate. At the center of the FBI and grandjury investigations is the Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic Center in St. Paul.   This is a story we spotlighted a June NER article, “Foot Soldiers of Islam”  presented at the recent Nashville Symposium and in earlier posts on The Iconoclast. We had also urged Senator Lieberman’s Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee to reopen hearings on recruitment for Al Shabaab in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area given the murder in Mogadishu of 18 year old Burhan Hassan.

Here are some of the emerging details in the FoxNews report:

Among those charged is a man from Minneapolis who went to war-torn Somalia and then, about four months ago, relocated to Seattle, according to the two sources and a leader in the Minneapolis Somali community. The man was then arrested in a Seattle airport and transferred to a jail in Minneapolis, where he is currently being detained, according to the law enforcement sources.

The law enforcement sources said the man, described as in his 20s, has been charged with providing material support to a terrorist group, in this case al-Shabaab, which has been warring with the moderate Somali government since 2006.

Omar Jamal, the executive director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center in St. Paul, Minn., identified the man as 21-year-old Abdifatah Ise. FOX News was unable to independently confirm that. Jamal said the man's family contacted him for "assistance" after the arrest, but he had been unable to speak publicly about it until now "in the interest of" a federal investigation.

For much of the past year the FBI has been looking into how dozens of young, Somali-American men were recruited to train and possibly fight alongside al-Shabaab in anarchy-stricken Somalia. The investigation has centered on Minneapolis, where a grand jury has been hearing testimony from witnesses for several months, but the investigation has also been active in Seattle; Columbus, Ohio; Cincinnati; Boston; and San Diego.

A source told FOX News in March that "several" recruits had returned to the United States, but counterterrorism officials have repeatedly said there is no intelligence indicating that any such recruits are planning attacks within the country.

"[Their] primary focus obviously is not on the homeland, it's abroad," Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano said during a briefing with reporters last week. "But any time you have people who are being trained in terrorist-type activities, that's something that needs to be monitored."

Note the focus of these federal investigations and possible indictments: the Abubakar As-Saddique Mosque:

According to Osman Ahmed, whose 18-year-old nephew was one of those to go to Somalia late last year, at least a dozen people have testified before the Minneapolis grand jury in the past few weeks alone, including officials from the Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic Center in St. Paul.

One law enforcement source said that shows "major progress" in the investigation, since the Abubakar mosque has been a focal point for investigators from the beginning.

Many of the men recruited to join al-Shabaab attended the Abubakar mosque, and several mosque officials, including director Farhan Hurre, could face indictment, one source said.

In addition, a youth volunteer at the mosque, Abia Ali, recently testified before the grand jury, and she is now worried that she could face indictment, according to Ahmed, who said he talked to someone close to Ali. Ahmed said he was told that Ali had been planning to visit family in Africa sometime in the next few weeks, but after testifying to the grand jury authorities told her not to leave the country.

In a recent interview with Minnesota Public Radio, Ali acknowledged that she felt like a target of the FBI investigation, but she denied any involvement in recruiting Somali-Americans to join the fight in Somalia.

The scope of these Federal investigations in several US Somali communities underlines the failure of FBI and Homeland Security monitoring of radical Mosques largely Saudi funded,  the conflicts in loyalties of naturalized American Somali admitted to this country under our generous humanitarian refugee program administered by our State Department and the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Refugee Resettlement.  Further, it raises a serious question about the lack of screening of radical Imams who are admitted to this country using so-called religious orders Visas. 

These are issues that should propel Senator Lieberman’s HSGAC committee to reopen hearings on Al Shabaab recruitment, soon.