From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Tue Mar 09 2010 - 07:35:54 EST
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100308/ap_on_re_us/us_somalia_terrorism_arrest_3
Man
accused in NYC of helping African terror group
By LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press Writer Larry Neumeister, Associated
Press Writer – Mon Mar 8, 4:47 pm ET
NEW YORK – An African man provided money and was trained with weapons and
explosives in a bid to help a terrorist organization seeking to destabilize
Somalia and attack U.S. interests, prosecutors announced Monday.
Mohamed Ibrahim Ahmed was held without bail after a brief appearance before
a federal magistrate judge in Manhattan. He was to enter a plea at a second
court appearance scheduled for Tuesday.
His lawyer, Sabrina Shroff, said he will plead not guilty.
Ahmed, a citizen of Eritrea, in northeast Africa, was brought to the United
States on Saturday to face an indictment accusing him of going to Somalia
last year to help al-Shabaab, a group designated by the U.S. government as a
terrorist organization.
Al-Shabaab is the most active group of violent extremists targeting
Somalia's weak transitional government, which is backed by the United
States. Somalia, an impoverished East African nation of about 10 million
people, has not had a functioning government for many years.
Federal prosecutors said al-Shabaab, in a quest to impose strict Islamic law
throughout Somalia, has claimed responsibility for multiple suicide bombing
attacks in recent years, including five simultaneous suicide bombings
targeting government, Ethiopian and United Nations facilities in October
2008.
The indictment charged Ahmed, who lived in Sweden and had visited Nigeria,
with conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist
organization, providing material support, conspiring to receive
military-type training from a foreign terrorist organization and receiving
military-type training from a terrorist group.
The indictment said he traveled to Somalia last April to receive holy war
training at a paramilitary camp belonging to al-Shabaab.
The training included instruction on bomb-making and bomb detonation, and
Ahmed possessed documents reflecting bomb-making instructions when he was in
Nigeria in November, the indictment said. Ahmed, who was arrested in
Nigeria, also supplied al-Shabaab with 3,000 euros last year, it said.
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