Australian Somalis under the terrorism spotlight

[Suldaanka]

Terror fear as extremists seek local Somali recruits

 

YOUNG Somali refugees in Melbourne are being seduced by Muslim extremists, a Somali community leader has warned.

 

Herse Hilole, a Sydney community leader and Islamic scholar, fears the recruits could be used in terrorism attacks in Australia.

 

He said some Somalis were being influenced by radical Lebanese from a hardline Wahhabi group.

 

Dr Hilole will give a speech to the Melbourne Somali community tonight, marking the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad.

 

In his speech, he says some Somalis have returned to Somalia from Melbourne and Sydney to join Islamic jihad and some have been killed.

 

He told The Age extremists from Somalia visited last year to gather money and support and that one of their most important allies was the Somali mosque in North Melbourne.

 

Leaders at the mosque declined to speak to The Age but worshippers say the mosque, in Racecourse Road, is a community centre.

 

Victorian Somali Social Club president Osman Ali said 10 to 20 Somalis had returned to fight, but as much for tribal and nationalist reasons as religious. Somalia is in the grip of a civil war between the Islamic Courts, a group of militant Islamists, and the Somali Government, which also comprises Muslims.

 

Other Melbourne Somali leaders denied that Australian Somalis were engaged in jihad, in Somalia or Australia.

 

Sheikh Isse Musse of the Werribee Islamic Centre said he would know if anyone went to fight, and Somali Council of Australia president Salaad Ali Ibrahim said the claims were misleading.

 

Mr Ibrahim said most Australian Somalis — more than 10,000 — lived in Melbourne. There was no danger from them, he said. "I work with the Victorian police very closely and ASIO, and would be the first person to put his hand up if there are people wanting to do that kind of thing."

 

An Australian Federal Police spokesman said he could not discuss investigations in Australia, but the force was investigating the alleged death of an Australian man in Somalia.

 

Dr Hilole says in his speech that Islamist extremists are using terrorist tactics in Somalia, trying to create an insurgency similar to Iraq, and have found many supporters in Australia.

 

"We know that some people left Australia to join the jihad of the Islamic Courts and have even been killed. We know there are supporters in Australia who want to recruit young Somalis to go back or support financially the Islamic Courts," he says. "The community must be made aware of this and we must put a stop to it."

 

He adds: "Somalis who take up Australian citizenship should know that they are now committed to obeying Australian law … Under Australian law it is forbidden to join jihad in any other country or join any war that is against the interest of Australia."

 

Dr Hilole told The Age that Muslim extremists fell into two groups in Australia: those promoting political Islam, such as Sheikh Taj al-Din al-Hilali, and those who supported jihad, such as Salafis (ultra-conservatives), who controlled some mosques and schools.

 

He said Somalis who supported the Islamic Courts movement, and there were many, did not want to integrate with Australian society.

 

"There was a group in Melbourne affiliated with al-Ittihad (the Islamic Courts) under the name al-Ansar, which was closed several times by Australian intelligence and security agencies. Now they are hiding in the community."

[Suldaanka]

Oz Police probe fund raising by Somali Islamic extremists for "terrorists" back home

From our ANI Correspondent

 

Sydney, Apr 23 : Australian Police are learnt to have launched intensive investigation into the suspected terrorist fundraising by the Somali Islamic extremists while staying in Australia. he move is the result of growing concerns that small groups of radicalised Somalis in Melbourne had been raising terror money and sending it to fund the Islamic jihad in their war-torn homeland.

 

 

Notably, Somalia has become a fertile ground for terrorists, with al-Qaeda using the lawless country to regroup and plot new attacks abroad.

 

Australia's Somali community has grown rapidly in the past decade as thousands of Somalians have sought to escape famine and war in their homeland.

 

Somali Community of Victoria president, Abdurahman Jama Osman has said that a small group of Melbourne-based Somalis are suspected of helping to fund extremists in the capital, Mogadishu . There was a fundraising in Melbourne and they said they were going to give the money to the Arab parts of Mogadishu. But, many Somalis believe that the money was sent to the Islamic military in Somalia. I'm sure they were breaking the law, and if so, they have harmed our reputation," The Australian quoted Osman as saying.

 

Australian laws on terrorism forbid raising money for extremists overseas.

 

Security sources say that the alleged fundraising took place while the former hardline Islamic government, known as the Islamic Court Union, was in power late last year.

 

Osman said that only a small number of Australia's 16,000 Somali immigrants were extremists, but that this small minority was hard-line. "Our problem is that young people are in touch with Wahabis (members of a fundamental Sunni Muslim sect). There are very few but you cannot change their mind-nobody can change their mind," he had said in an interview earlier this year.

 

In December, a 25-year-old Somali man from Melbourne, Ahmed Ali, was killed after travelling to Somalia to join the Islamic jihad there.

 

In a speech to Somali community members in Melbourne last week, Sydney Somali leader Herse Hilole warned that young Somalis were being seduced by Muslim extremists. "We know there are supporters in Australia who want to recruit young Somalis to go back or support financially the Islamic Courts.

 

The community must be made aware of this, and we must put a stop to it. Somalis who take up Australian citizenship should know they are now committed to obeying Australian law ... under Australian law, it is forbidden to join jihad in any country, or join any war that is against the interests of Australia," he said.

 

The US military has also launched air raids against suspected Somali al-Qaeda strongholds in the wake of the downfall of the Islamic Courts government, toppled in December by Ethiopian troops tacitly backed by the US.

[Fabregas]

I saw the guy on Aljazeera English. Walahi dhibaato buu dadka ukeenaya. Hada, Xawaladaha iyo guryaha dadka askar so weeraraysa. Bal buu afkiisa iska xidho?

[Suldaanka]

^^Shocking walaahi.

 

I hear that these grown up men are doing this because of the pitty politics back in Somalia.

 

Tanina ma inoo danbaysay. Alaw sahal amuuraha.

 

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Here is a related reading.

 

Social issues not extremism the problem facing Somalis in Australia