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Archive for the 'Somalia' Category


Summary: A leading specialist on al-Qaida, Noman Benotman, says Saif al-Adel, an Egyptian, is acting as interim operational leader of the terrorist organization pending the expected appointment of deputy chief Ayman al-Zawahiri as successor to Osama bin Laden. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on May 18, 2010, Aubrey Immelman provided his weekly report of U.S. military deaths in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, compiled from U.S. Department of Defense News Releases.


Apr 17th, 2011

Summary: Hispanics accounted for more than half of the U.S. population increase over the last decade and crossed a new census milestone: 50 million, or one in six Americans. In Minnesota, 2010 census figures show the state’s Hispanic population jumped 75 percent in the past decade. The rapid growth of central Minnesota’s immigrant population, if it continues unabated, has the potential to create significant social conflict down the road — though less so in the case of Mexican immigrants than for Somalis. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 17, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that despite an upsurge in threats and violence by far-right radical groups and lone wolves, the Homeland Security Department appeared gun-shy about reporting or monitoring the trend too closely. Domestic security and counterterrorism officials said that even though a controversial report issued a year earlier by Homeland Security about a “resurgence” in far-right radicalization and recruitment appears well informed, if not prescient, the Department had done nothing to re-issue the report or update it.


Feb 7th, 2011

Summary: Minnesota Somali gangs known in recent years for armed robberies, burglaries, and even killings of fellow East Africans have evolved into more lucrative criminal enterprises — including sex trafficking and credit card fraud — and are proliferating their crimes from Minneapolis to other parts of the United States. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on February 7, 2010, Aubrey Immelman featured the controversial “Focus on the Family” anti-abortion TV spot featuring football star Tim Tebow and his mother Pam, aired during the 2010 Super Bowl.


Jan 5th, 2011

Summary: The Obama administration has ramped up its secret war on terror groups with a new military targeting center to oversee the growing use of special operations strikes against suspected militants in hot spots around the world. The creation of the center comes as part of the administration’s increasing reliance on clandestine and covert action to hunt terror suspects. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 5, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that Dr. Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, the 32-year-old Jordanian physician who struck the CIA’s Camp Chapman forward operating base in Khost province near the Afghan-Pakistan border on December 30, 2009 killing seven Central Intelligence Agency employees, matched the psychological profile of a specific type of suicide bomber.


Dec 28th, 2010

Summary: Fuad Mohamed “Shongole” Qalaf, leader of al-Shabab, Somalia’s al-Qaida-linked Islamist insurgency, is threatening to attack America. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on December 28, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that in the midst of two unfinished wars — Afghanistan and Iraq — the United States had quietly opened a third, largely covert, war front against Al Qaeda in Yemen.


Dec 2nd, 2010

Summary: The New York Times reports that confidential diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks offers a fresh sense of the pervasive nature of predatory corruption in Afghanistan, the overwhelming scale of the corruption, and the serious challenge it poses to American officials who have made shoring up support for the Afghan government a cornerstone of America’s counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan, where bribery, extortion, and embezzlement are the norm. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on December 2, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that President Barack Obama held an uncertain hand in his high-stakes gamble in the fight against Islamic extremism in Afghanistan and Pakistan, with weak partners in both countries, doubts about the speed of building up Afghan security forces, and allies reluctant to commit themselves wholeheartedly to the fight.


Nov 27th, 2010

Summary: A Somali-born teenager, Mohamed Osman Mohamud, plotted to carry out a car bomb attack at a crowded Christmas tree-lighting ceremony in downtown Portland, Oregon, but the bomb turned out to be a dummy supplied by undercover agents as part of a counterterrorism sting operation. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on November 27, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that Jeremy Greenstock, British ambassador to the United Nations from 1998 to 2003, testified before an inquiry into the Iraq war that the Bush administration was “hell bent” on the 2003 military invasion of Iraq and actively undermined efforts by Britain to win international authorization for the war.



Summary: Investigators believe the same al-Qaida-affiliated group responsible for the Christmas Day underwear bomb were behind the PETN-based devices hidden in packages sent from Yemen. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on October 30, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, on her first official visit to Pakistan, faced sharp rebukes from Pakistani audiences brimming with resentment toward U.S. foreign policy, including one woman who accused the U.S. of conducting “executions without trial” in aerial drone strikes, equating it to terrorism.


Sep 22nd, 2010

Summary: As terror groups move away from planning complex 9/11-style attacks, involving months of planning and a large group of participants, it’s more difficult to detect and disrupt plots against the United States, according to three of the nation’s top counterterrorism officials. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on September 22, 2009, Aubrey Immelman provided his weekly report of U.S. military deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan and reported that Al-Qaida marked the 8th anniversary of 9/11 with a new 106-minute video predicting President Barack Obama’s downfall.


Aug 7th, 2010

Summary: The Justice Department has announced the indictment of 14 people — 12 of them Minnesota Somalis, many of them U.S. citizens — accused of funneling “money, personnel, and services” to the Shabab, the Islamist terrorist group fighting an insurgency in Somalia. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on August 7, 2009 Aubrey Immelman reported that a suicide car bomb devastated a Shiite mosque in northern Iraq, one of a series of attacks that killed at least 40 and wounded about 100 Iraqis. He also reported that Pakistan’s Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud had been killed in a CIA missile strike.