12 Minnesotans Indicted in Terror Probe
James Walsh, Allie Shah, and Richard Meryhew, Star Tribune (Minneapolis), August 5, 2010
A massive terrorism investigation reached deeper into Minnesota Thursday.
Federal officials in Washington, D.C., announced the indictments of 14 people–including 12 Minnesotans–for allegedly providing support to a Somali terrorist organization with ties to Al-Qaida. That number includes two Rochester women who were arrested at their homes Thursday morning.
Amina Farah Ali, 33, and Hawo Mohamed Hassan, 63, both naturalized American citizens, are the first women to be charged in what has been called one of the most sweeping counterterrorism investigations since the attacks of 9/11. They have been charged with fundraising for Al-Shabab, which the United States has classified as a terrorist organization.
Attorney General Eric Holder said of the charges: “These indictments and arrests–in Minnesota, Alabama and California–shed further light on a deadly pipeline that has routed funding and fighters to Al-Shabab from cities across the United States.”
That pipeline has led directly to Minnesota, where at least 20 young local Somalis have been recruited by Al-Shabab to go overseas and fight. Five have since died in Somalia’s civil war. Another Minneapolis man, a convert to Islam, was killed. Five others have pleaded guilty to charges in connection to the case. Another sits in jail in the Netherlands, awaiting extradition.
{snip} Hawo Mohamed Hassan,
