March 4, 2009

by Jerry Gordon, The Iconoclast, March 4, 2009

March 4, 2009

Todd Stein, Esq.
Majority Counsel
U.S. Senate Homeland Security
& Government Affairs Committee
340 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Ref: Hearings on Violent Islamic Extremism: Al Shabaab Recruitment, March 11, 2009

Dear Todd:

We are pleased that the Committee has scheduled a Hearing on this important matter: Recruitment of Naturalized American Somali Youths for the Al Shabaab militia in Somali- a foreign terrorist group designated by the U.S. State Department. Doubtless the Committee is responding to reports in mainstream media such as USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, Jerusalem Post involving possible recruitment by radical Imams in Somali émigré communities across the heartland of America, including your hometown of Atlanta.

Despite the shutdown of at least one Al Shabaab website in the US, several others continue in operations monitored by cyber sleuths like Joseph Shahda and others. Patrick Poole has investigated radical Somali and Muslim Brotherhood control over charter schools in Columbus, Ohio and use of taxpayer funded facilities for indoctrination of Somali youths. Katherine Kersten, formerly with the Minneapolis Star Tribune has investigated radical Imams control of a Somali charter school in the Inver Heights School District that resulted in challenges by the Minnesota Chapter of the ACLU to the Minnesota Department of Education. AP Award winning journalist, Brian Mosely of the Shelbyville Times-Gazette has run a series of stories on the extreme culture clash with Somalis in a small Tennessee community. David Gaubatz of the Mapping Sharia Project has recently conducted an investigation of radical mosques in Nashville documenting materials giving rise to incitement of jihad against America. (Continue Reading this Article)