There’s nothing quite like sitting down with your first cup of coffee, and then watching a national news story about how your own city is a central location for recruiting home-grown Islamic terrorists. CNN reports on the growth of American influence on the Somalian terrorist group al-Shabaab and their growing partnership with al-Qaeda.  The report focuses on the recruitment of Americans in Somalian immigrant groups for terrorism and includes footage of recruiter/leader Omar Hamaam al-Ameriki — of Alabama.  But for those of us who live in the Twin Cities, this isn’t new at all:

We’ve been writing about this for almost five years at Hot Air.  It was over three years ago that a Twin Cities recruit conducted a suicide bombing in Somalia, after being radicalized at a local mosque.  More than twenty young Somalian men disappeared from Minneapolis, and the Somalian immigrant community has been working with the FBI to find them and end terrorist recruitment.  In fact, they publicly protested against CAIR when the Muslim interest group tried to bully them into non-cooperation; they have been very cooperative in attempting to keep their children from getting entangled in the civil wars they fled.  The FBI conducted raids on cash-transfer shops suspected of funding terrorist recruitment, the DoJ indicted eight men here, and then even more around the country, including in Hamaam’s native state of Alabama.

Not much has transpired since then, except for the continued press for recruits from al-Shabaab.  The real danger for the US is that the recruits could easily re-enter the US and conduct terrorist attacks, although that has not yet happened — and as CNN notes, al-Shabaab has not had much success in conducting attacks in their own region, let alone back in the US.  That doesn’t mean we should not remain vigilant, and CNN’s report is a good reminder to keep our focus on this threat.