POLICE arrested two New Jersey men last night as they tried to leave the US for terrorist training camps in war-torn Somalia.
The men, identified as 20-year-old Mohamed Hamoud Alessa and 26-year-old Carlos Eduardo Almonte, were taken into custody by FBI agents and others at JFK International Airport outside New York City, FOXNews.com reported.
They were allegedly set to take separate flights to Egypt and then make their way to Somalia, where an al Qaeda-linked group known as al Shebab was warring with the nation’s fledgling transitional government.
One source called Somalia “the Afghanistan of now,” suggesting that the near-anarchist state in Somalia allowed the country to become a fertile training ground for terrorist recruits from around the world.
Alessa, a U.S. citizen, and Almonte, a Jordanian citizen believed to have dual U.S. citizenship, “grew up” in the United States, becoming the latest in a “disconcerting pattern” of “people living among us” who are radicalised with extremist ideology, one source said.
The men did not pose an “imminent threat,” but “getting on planes to receive” terrorist training means they posed a broader threat, the source said.
Federal authorities – including the FBI and others – began watching Alessa and Almonte in 2006, when their unspecified internet activity led the New York Police Department to launch an investigation dubbed Operation Arabian Knight.
While a team of federal authorities watched the men arrive at the airport, others raided their homes in the New Jersey cities of Elmwood Park and North Bergen. The men were charged with terrorism-related offenses and were due to appear in court later today. The men were charged with conspiracy to kill Americans outside the country, officials said.
No more arrests related to the case were expected. FBI officials in Washington could not immediately be reached for comment, and a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which assisted the investigation, declined to do so.
FBI Supervisory Special Agent Rich Kolko, a spokesman with the FBI’s New York City field office, confirmed that two men were arrested at JFK International Airport, adding only that there was “no threat at the airport.”
More than a year ago, the FBI began investigating how dozens of Americans from across the country were recruited to train and fight alongside al Shebab, which pledged allegiance to al Qaeda. In October 2008, 27-year-old college student Shirwa Ahmed, of Minneapolis, became “the first known American suicide bomber” when he blew himself up in Somalia, killing dozens, according to the FBI.
FBI Director Robert Mueller acknowledged that al Shebab “would like to undertake operations outside of Somalia.” But U.S. officials said repeatedly there was no intelligence to suggest the militant group was plotting attacks inside the U.S.
Somalia has lacked stable government since 1991, when dictator Siad Barre was ousted from power. The transitional government has had trouble keeping Muslim militants at bay, and in 2006 fighting with al Shebab intensified after Western-backed Ethiopian forces invaded the country.
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