US citizens may be among Nairobi mall attackers, Kenyan president says

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/24/us-citizens-nairobi-mall-attack-kenya

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The Kenyan president has said intelligence reports indicate that the terrorist group behind the terrorist attack on a Nairobi shopping mall may have included American citizens who traveled to the region to fight in Somalia.

The US is investigating claims that at least two US citizens – possibly from the Somali expatriate community in Minnesota – were among those responsible for the deadly terrorist attacks on the Westgate centre.

Announcing the end of the four-day siege on Tuesday, Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta said forensic experts were "working to ascertain the nationalities of the terrorists", and added that early indications were that the terrorist group could have included a British woman and some US citizens.

"Intelligence reports had suggested that a British woman and two or three American citizens may have been involved in the attack," Kenyatta said. "We cannot confirm the details at present."

Earlier, Kenya's foreign minister, Amina Mohamed, told PBS that the Americans believed to have been involved in the attacks, which caused more than 60 deaths, were "young men, about between maybe 18 and 19".

Asked about their background, she added: "Of Somali origin or Arab origin, but that lived in the US, in Minnesota and one other place. So, basically, look, that just was to underline the global nature of this war we're fighting."

The FBI, which has monitored ethnic Somalis in Minnesota traveling to Somalia for several years, is taking the lead in an investigation into possible involvement of US citizens.

The terrorist group behind the Kenyan attacks, al-Shabaab, is known to have recruited from Somali communities in the US, particularly in and around Minneapolis-St Paul. Just last month a video purportedly released by the group documented how three young men from the Twin Cities traveled to Somalia, where they were killed fighting for the group.

Kyle Loven, the chief division counsel in the FBI's Minneapolis office, confirmed to the Guardian that the video was a recruitment effort expressly targeting young men in the area, and purported to show individuals from the local community who had been recruited. The 40-minute video, entitled Minnesota's Martyrs: The Path to Paradise, opens with a sequence showing the Twin Cities.

One of three men that the video claims traveled to al-Shabaab from Minnesota is recorded saying in English: "This is the real Disneyland."

Loven said the Minneapolis division of the FBI was assessing information emerging from Kenya, but would not comment further. "We are not in a position to confirm any identities," he said.

Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser at the White House, said on Monday that US officials were investigating the claims. He spoke after a Twitter account ostensibly run by al-Shabaab reported a number of individuals it claimed were foreign fighters involved in the attacks on the Westgate mall.

They included two individuals apparently from Minneapolis-St Paul, the hub for an estimated 85,000 Somalis living in the US. "All we've seen are the same reports coming out of al-Shabaab that indicate information along those lines," Rhodes said, when asked if Americans were involved in the attack.

"But we have to run those to ground, of course. We do monitor very carefully and have for some time been concerned about efforts by al-Shabaab to recruit Americans or US persons to come to Somalia. So this is an issue that has been tracked very closely by the US government, and it's one that we'll be looking into in the days ahead."

The success that al-Shabaab has had in eliciting funds and recruiting fighters from the US – especially in the Minnesota area – is well documented. A number of Americans, including some suicide bombers, are believed to have died in the Somali conflict.

The FBI and the Justice Department have responded with a determined effort to clamp down on recruitment activities in Minnesota. The effort, codenamed Operation Rhino, which focuses on young ethnic Somali men from the Minneapolis area, began six years ago and is still operational today. It has resulted in several convictions for terrorism-related offenses in recent years.

Analysts say that several dozen Americans and Britons have traveled to Somalia to join al-Shabaab's ranks. They include Shirwa Ahmed, 26, from Minneapolis, who became the first American suicide bomber when he detonated a truck filled with explosives in northern Somalia in 2008.

The most prominent American associated with al-Shabaab was Omar Hammami, from Alabama, who rose to a leadership position in the group before falling out with other members. He was reportedly killed earlier this month.

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