TerrorismThree Somali Americans convicted for planning to join ISIS in Syria
In a landmark federal court case in Minnesota, three young Somali American men who planned to join ISIS in Syria, have been convicted of conspiracy to commit murder overseas. Each could face life in prison after they were convicted of the most serious charges. In all, the federal government has indicted ten Somali American men in relation to the conspiracy, which was uncovered by a sprawling FBI counterterrorism investigation.
In a landmark federal court case in Minnesota, three young Somali American men — Guled Omar, 21, Abdirahman Daud, 22, and Mohamed Farah, 22 — who planned to join ISIS in Syria, have been convicted of conspiracy to commit murder overseas. Each could face life in prison after they were convicted of the most serious charges.
The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports that in all, the federal government has indicted ten Somali American men in relation to the conspiracy, which was uncovered by a sprawling FBI counterterrorism investigation. Six have already pleaded guilty, while the seventh, 22-year-old Abdi Nur, has left for Syria to join ISIS.
The prosecution’s case relied on the testimony of an FBI informant, 20-year-old Abdirahman Bashir, who had initially been part of the conspiracy but then agreeing to record his friends as they plotted to leave America. The involvement of Bashir, who testified for five straight days, has led some members of the large Somali community in Minneapolis to charge the FBI with entrapment.
The sentences if the six young men who have pleaded guilty could be reduced by U.S. district judge Michael Davis, who assigned a deradicalization expert to determine the potential of each of the young men to be deradicalize.
The ten men have tried several times to leave the United States, finally concluding that the best way would be to buy fake passports and leave for Syria from Mexico. Daud and Farah, along with the informant Bashir, drove for three days from Minneapolis to San Diego, where they met with an undercover FBI agent who had promised to provide the fake passports. Daud and Farah were arrested during the sting operation, and Omar was arrested shortly afterwards.
The court heard secret recordings of the three men discussing their plans to leave the country, as well as their views on violent ISIS propaganda videos they had watched together. The court also heard testimony from two of the men who had pleaded guilty, and who took plea deals in exchange for testifying against their former friends.
“The evidence in this case made clear that the defendants made a deeply personal and deliberate decision back in 2014,” said United States attorney Andrew Luger. “They wanted to fight for a brutal terrorist organization, kill innocent people and destroy their own families in the process. This trial should serve as a wake-up call that it will take the entire community to stop terror recruiting in Minnesota.”
The Star-Tribune notes that the Somali community in Minneapolis, one of the largest in America, is still dealing with the effects of the two dozen or so young men who left the city between 2007 and 2011 to join the Islamist group al-Shabaab in Somalia.
Studies show that the Somali community is plagued by poverty and unemployment. Recent research indicates an overwhelming 58 percent of the 46,000 Somali Americans in Minnesota live in poverty, with 40 percent of adults unemployed.
Richard Thornton, the FBI special agent in charge, defended the methods used throughout the investigation.
“These verdicts affirm the FBI’s investigative efforts,” Thornton said in a statement. “The FBI will not induce people to break our laws. However, the FBI, through all legal means at its disposal, will investigate and pursue those who aim to bring about harm to others.”
