Chicago man charged with backing al-Shabab group
Somali government forces attacked a base of the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab Wednesday in a village near the Ethiopian border, sparking clashes that left at least 21 combatants dead, officials said.
"The fighting broke out in a village near Yed district after our forces attacked the terrorists," Colonel Mohamed Ali, a local government security official, told AFP.
Machine guns, artillery and anti-aircraft weapons were used in the fighting in Habow, a village near the border with the al-Shabab’s arch-foe Ethiopia that lies northwest of the capital Mogadishu.
More dead bodies to count
"It was the heaviest fighting in this region and we killed many of their fighters," Ali said, adding that his side lost seven soldiers in the six hours of fighting.
"At least 21 combatants from both sides were killed in the clashes and the number could be higher because there are dead bodies that still haven’t been retrieved from the battlefield," local elder Hasan Moalim Mohamud said.
"Communications in the area are bad but the information we are getting is that al-Shabab fighters still control the area," he added.
Madker Isak, another elder from the nearby district of Rabdhure, said al-Shabab had sent reinforcements to the area.
"I saw the dead bodies of several Shabab fighters and others who were injured being taken away on a truck. There were four other trucks going in the other direction bringing fighters to the frontline," Isak said.
"The village where the fighting took place is only 20 kilometres from the Ethiopian border and there were some Ethiopian officials who were helping the Somali government forces in the fighting," said Mohamed Awdinle, another elder.
"I know that more than 20 people died," he added.
Ethiopia, which invaded Somalia in 2006 to topple the Islamist movement that gave birth to al-Shabab and pulled out in 2009, has been repeatedly accused of crossing the border to assist the government.
The embattled Western-backed government controls only a few blocks in Mogadishu, thanks mainly to the protection of a Ugandan-led African Union force, and a few pockets elsewhere in the country.
Al-Shabab and its allies from the smaller Hezb al-Islam group control 80 percent of Somalia and launched a bruising military offensive in May 2009 to topple the government and complete their power grab.
Chicago man charged with backing al-Shabab group
A 26-year-old Chicago man was charged on Wednesday with attempting to provide material support to al-Shabab.
Shaker Masri, a U.S. citizen who worked for a company that translated the Koran into English, was arrested on Tuesday hours before he was due to board a flight for California, with Somalia intended as his ultimate destination, according to an FBI affidavit.
Masri was arraigned on charges of attempting to provide material support to a terrorist organization and attempting to provide material support through the use of a weapon of mass destruction. A U.S. magistrate judge ordered him held without bond.
Based on weeks of conversations with a paid FBI informant and tape-recordings of telephone calls, Masri was intent on gaining weapons training in Mexico and then wanted to become a suicide bomber to participate in a "jihad" to kill people he termed "infidels," according to the affidavit.
The informant provided Masri money to buy plane tickets for both of them. They hatched elaborate plans on how to travel incognito to various countries en route to Somalia.
Masri told the informant he wanted to strap on a suicide vest and keep it on until called upon to detonate it.
Masri said he wanted to keep a low profile, having known a recently arrested Virginia man, Zachary Adam Chesser, though the FBI said there was no evidence they had been in contact.
In 2008, the U.S. State Department designated al-Shabab as a foreign terrorist organization, describing it as a violent extremist group. U.S. officials have said many of the group’s senior leaders are believed to have trained and fought with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
A subplot to Masri’s case was the love-sick telephone calls he engaged in with an unnamed young woman in London identified in court documents as "Individual B."
"Do you know, like, how much this will affect me? Do you even realize?" the woman asks Masri in one conversation.
According to affidavit, she complained of being misled by Masri.
"It appeared to her that he never intended to build a life with her but, instead, at best, to marry her, get her pregnant and then ’emigrate for the sake of God,’ ‘to learn more about his (religion), and then disappear,’ never to return," the document said.