After several months of questions about the disappearance of dozens of young Somali men from Minneapolis — and the deaths of three of them in Somalia — the federal court has unsealed an indictment against two men for supporting terrorist activity.  The FBI has worked for months to discover the fate of a number of young men who all attended one particular mosque in the Twin Cities.  Their family members have run afoul of CAIR in attempting to cooperate in finding their relatives:

The first indictments in a major counterterrorism investigation became public Monday when a Twin Cities Somali man appeared in federal court on charges of providing support to terrorists and conspiracy to “kill, kidnap, maim or injure” people in foreign countries.

A federal grand jury had indicted Salah Osman Ahmed, 26, of Brooklyn Park, and Abdifatah Yusuf Isse, of Seattle, in February, but the indictments were kept sealed until Ahmed appeared Monday afternoon before Magistrate Judge Susan Richard Nelson.

Special agent E.K. Wilson confirmed Monday that the indictments of Isse and Ahmed are connected to a major federal investigation into the disappearance of up to 20 local men of Somali descent. It is believed that the Minnesota men may have been recruited by terrorists to return to their families’ homeland to fight in the continuing civil war there. Since October, at least four have died there.

Somalis in Minneapolis have demanded action, and for that, they have been intimidated by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), as the Star-Tribune reported almost exactly a month ago.  Their attempts to work with the FBI got a big “shut up” from CAIR.  In response, Somalis protested outside of a community center demanding that CAIR quit interfering with their efforts to find those family members who had disappeared — and presumably went back to Somalia to engage in terrorist activities.

The death of another teen in Somalia this weekend makes this news even more important:

“It’s good news to us,” said Abdirizak Bihi, uncle of Burhan Hassan, an 18-year-old Minneapolis man who died in June in Somalia after being shot in the head. “The community just wants to be done with this.”

Bihi said the three deaths over the past month — of Hassan in June and Jamal Bana and Zakaria Maruf this past weekend — have shaken the relatives of the other missing men.

The indictment alleges that Ahmed and Isse’s activities took place in the same time period of the disappearances.  Both men traveled to Somalia during this period, as the Strib reports, and apparently the prosecution believes they arranged to send recruits to the Islamist terrorists that have made a home in that country.  The court proceedings did not reveal many details, but the ongoing investigation indicates that more indictments may come in the future.  That may be bad news for the Abubakar Islamic Society in Minneapolis, where the activity seems to have been centered.  (via Power Line)