American “Returnee” Charged with Plotting Terror on U.S. Soil: Erick Stakelbeck
American “Returnee” Charged with Plotting Terror on U.S. Soil
And then he came back.
23-year-old Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud left his home in Columbus, Ohio in April 2014 and traveled to Syria with intentions of joining an Islamic terrorist group. He was following in the footsteps of his brother, who had arrived in Syria the year before and fought alongside the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra Front before being killed in battle in June 2014.
It’s unclear whether Mohamud intended to link up with ISIS or with Al-Nusra. What is clear, according to the federal indictment against him, is that he hooked up with terrorists in Syria who provided him with training and then, a mission: to return to the United States and carry out terror attacks on American soil.
The order to return home was reportedly given by a jihadist cleric in Syria. And Mohamud did what any loyal, fanatical jihadist would do–he followed orders.
He came back to Ohio–the Heartland–allegedly with every intention to kill Americans.
In doing so, he followed a path that I warned about earlier this week: of U.S. and European citizens traveling to Syria and Iraq (not to mention Somalia, Yemen and Pakistan), receiving training from terror groups, and then returning home to wreak havoc in their home countries. Syria–which has become an absolute magnet for young jihadists flocking to join ISIS’s ranks–is a particular problem.
Luckily, Mohamud was arrested by federal authorities in Ohio before he was able to carry out his mission–which allegedly included plans to attack a military base or a prison inside the United States.
Other recent “returnees,” however, have had deadly success–carrying out horrific attacks in Paris and Brussels in the past year alone.
In addition to the fact that he is a returnee, another reason why Mohamud’s arrest is no noteworthy is that he is a native of Somalia. I have documented extensively, both in my books ISIS Exposed and The Terrorist Next Door and in on-the-ground reports for CBN News (see here and here) the growing problem of radicalization in the Somali-American community–particularly in the Twin Cities of Minnesota, home to the largest Somali population in North America.
Over the past several years, dozens of young Somalis from Minneapolis and St. Paul have traveled overseas to join terror groups like ISIS. It is a serious threat to U.S. national security. More to come on that in a future post.
In the meantime, Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud’s arrest follows similar terror-related busts in New York, Philadelphia, Illinois and Kansas in recent weeks.
The emergence of ISIS as a global phenomenon has sent eager young jihadists around the world into overdrive–including here in the United States. This is not a criminal nuisance. It is a worldwide ideological movement bent on America’s destruction.
Wake up, folks. As the rash of recent terror-related arrests shows, the barbarians are not just at the gates. They’re inside them.
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