There aren’t enough good targets in Somalia…
A senior leader of al Qaeda’s affiliate in Somalia has declared jihad against neighboring Kenya for supporting the weak Somali Transitional Federal Government.
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johnpi
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johnpi
In the wake of threats by al Shabaab to send fighters to Yemen to assist Al Qaeda there, the Yemeni government is cracking down on Somali refugees and keeping them locked in camps.
This follows reports earlier this week in Kenya that authorities there swept through Somali neighborhoods and rounded people up by the hundreds after protests on behalf of Abdullah al Faisal.
Apparently, Somali refugees are being unfairly tainted with the reputation of al Shabaab and viewed more widely in Africa with suspicion and mistrust. Consequently, they are being targeted for greater persecution.
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johnpi
A Somali militant group, Hizbul Islam, has denounced the mass arrest of hundreds of Somali immigrants in Kenya after protests over the treatment of Abdullah al Faisal. The group issued no threat of retaliation.
Hizbul Islam was aligned with al Shabaab until October when the two groups turned on each other.
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johnpi
Kenyan police detained 300 Somali immigrants and a leading Muslim activist as tension mounted between the authorities and the nation’s Muslim minority following a deadly protest last week.
As the government scrambled to find countries willing to take in hardline Jamaican preacher Abdullah al-Faisal, whose botched deportation sparked the unrest, police vowed to deal firmly with a new protest planned on Friday.
The elite paramilitary General Service Unit and the anti-terrorism police raided Nairobi’s Eastleigh neighbourhood late Sunday and detained 300 people said to be illegal Somali immigrants.
Related: Kenya says Muslim cleric to be deported in two days.
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johnpi
Kenyan police, people clash with al Faisal supporters.
Kenyan security forces shot in the air and fired tear gas at hundreds of people protesting in the capital on Friday against the detention of Jamaican Muslim cleric Sheikh Abdullah al-Faisal.
The protesters, chanting “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest) and some holding the flag of Somali rebel group al Shabaab, were blocked by police with dogs as they tried to march through the heart of Nairobi after prayers at the downtown mosque.
Some Kenyans, angry the attempted protest had taken place at all, joined forces with the security forces and began hurling stones at the marchers, squeezing them back toward the mosque.
“This is not an acceptable behavior. The man who is supposed to be deported is not a Kenyan and his presence is not in the interest of Kenya these days,” said bystander Richard Odibo.
A helicopter clattered overhead and police also used water cannon to contain the clashes. Many protesters, some carrying pictures of Faisal on placards, were eventually corralled in the mosque but small groups continued hurling stones nearby.
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johnpi
Jamaican Muslim leaders agree to reinforce a ban on radical preacher Abdullah al Faisal if he ever makes it back to Jamaica.
Further, the imams want to work with the Jamaican government to focus on Jamaican citizens who have been deported from other countries after converting to Islam in foreign prisons.
“There are going to be some changes there,” said Muhammad, who noted that there are a number of deportees coming back from prisons in America and England who have Islamic materials they have received while in the prisons in these countries.
“We will try to see how best we can get these persons back in the community from a positive point of view and ensure that if they still maintain their Islamic identity, it is in fact in a positive way instead of a negative way,” said Muhammad.
Also, according to the Jamaican newspaper I’ve linked here, al Faisal was successfully deported from Kenya to Gambia. It’s like a game of “Where’s Waldo” trying to figure out where assorted governments have stashed him.
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johnpi
The tough life of a radical preacher: Attempt to deport Abdullah al Faisal to Gambia fails.
Nigeria refused to give him a transit visa, and he has been returned to Kenya where he is now languishing in a Nairobi jail.
The problem for Kenya and al Faisal is how to get him back to his home country of Jamaica, which has said it will take him, when no country in the world will even let him pass through its airspace.
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johnpi
Abdullah al Faisal’s forced hijrah to Somalia.
So far, three countries have refused al Faisal a transit visa: South Africa, the UK and Tanzania. Human rights activists say that because of the fact that “no country with a functional government is willing to allow him to fly over their airspace,” Kenyan authority’s only option may be to “dump” him to a “lawless country” like Somalia, which the activists are calling ‘rendition.’
After living his entire life in the West, al Faisal will finally get a chance to live in the particular version of paradise he has been preaching about.
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johnpi
Revolution Muslim’s ‘imam and spiritual advisor’ deported from Kenya.
That would be Abdullah al-Faisal who was deported from the UK in 2007 after serving a prison sentence for preaching racial hatred and calling for the killing of Jews, Christians and other Westerners. He entered Kenya Dec. 24th on a “preaching tour.”
“The contacts he was maintaining, according to our intelligence, are not the best, are not in our national interests. The contacts were … in some neighbouring countries.”
….Some Kenyan Muslim clerics demonstrated against Faisal’s arrest on Sunday and said he was going to preach on greater autonomy for Muslims.
“Of course, he did not come here to appease the Kenyan government or the police, but to do his job,” said Sheikh Yahya Mohamed Atie, a retired army captain and a member of Nairobi’s Jamia Mosque.
“He was calling Muslims to have more freedom. Of course, he is against democracy.”
Back in the 1990s, al-Faisal called for the assassination of former Philly Imam Abu Usamah Ath-Thahabi, who more recently was reported to be a liar, swindler and womanizer on Salafi Burnout’s blog.
The Kenyan authorities are said to be “so annoyed” with him that they won’t even grant him a transit visa back to Jamaica.
The NEFA Foundation, a US anti-terrorism think tank, published a new backgrounder on him in October in which it says al-Faisal is described by ‘Revolution Muslim’ as its imam and spiritual advisor.
Abdullah al-Faisal has a loyal following that is dedicated to promoting his ideology to others via the Internet and through in-person delivery of compact disc recordings. Additionally, al-Faisal regularly generates new material by giving public lectures, which are then recorded and distributed electronically and on CDs. Thus, the pervasiveness of his influence is spread quickly and broadly.
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johnpi
Danish attack suspect also allegedly targeted Hillary Clinton in Kenya last August.
A man charged with attempting to kill a Danish cartoonist over his Muslim prophet Mohammed caricatures was also involved in an alleged plot against US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a Danish newspaper reported Sunday.
….Kenyan police had arrested the suspect in 2009 and had held him for seven weeks. The Kenyan press had linked his arrest with a plot againt Clinton, the paper added.
Clinton visited Kenya last August.
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johnpi
Somalis living in northern Kenya have accused the government in Nairobi of secretly recruiting and training youths from the region as soldiers to go to fight for the transitional Somali government against al-Shabaab fighters.
Local leaders have said that in the last three weeks alone, at least 200 Kenyans of Somali origin have been recruited in the town of Garissa.
The recruitment drive has also been accused of operating in other towns and the refugee camps in Dabaab.
Habiba Kosar, one of numerous parents in northeastern Kenya raising the alarm, said her 18-year-old son, Mohammed, was recruited and is being trained as a soldier at a Kenyan government security facility.
“My son was picked in the middle of the night. He is being trained for Somalia. We have never seen Somalia and have no connection with the country. I just want my son back,” she said.
“This is cheap propaganda disseminated by some militia groups in Somalia,” a Kenyan spokesperson said.
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johnpi
An American man has been arrested in northern Kenya while trying to enter an area of Somalia controlled by Islamist insurgents, police and residents said on Monday.
Lawless Somalia is viewed by the international community as a breeding ground for al Qaeda-linked groups which have been carrying out an insurgency against the U.N.-backed administration of President Sheikh Shariff Ahmed.
A witness told Reuters that the man was arrested on Sunday by police manning the immigration office at the border town of Liboi in Kenya’s North Eastern province. He was on his way to Qoqani in southern Somalia without any security escort.
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johnpi
Kenyan women set up “to hell with men” village.
Tired of abuse and suppression a group of women in Kenya have joined forces to establish a female only village in Kenya, where the motto seems to be “to hell with men.”
The village, based 350 kilometers west of the capital of Nairobi, was started by a group of 14 women who decided to escape the dominance of men and live according to their own rules, Germany’s Deutsche Presse Agentur (DPA) reported on Wednesday.
Called Umoja, or unity in Swahili, the village has become a safe-haven for women escaping arranged marriages, female genital mutilation (FGM) or rape and abuse.
….Despite the fact that women in the village live on their own, men from neighboring villages continue to harass them and throw stones at them.
“Get out of here. You are cursed,” they yell at them, prompting the women to build a barbed wire fence around the village to protect themselves.
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johnpi
A Protestant church in Kenya is trying to convert US President Barack Obama’s step-grandmother to Christianity against her will, a Muslim group said Monday, condemning the move as provocation.
But elsewhere it’s reported that she wanted to convert but the family stopped her:
Attempts to convert US President Barack Obama’s grand mother to Christianity flopped on Saturday at the 11th hour after family members opposed the move.
Although Mama Sarah Obama had dressed up for the day, her son, Saidi Obama, and other family members were adamant that she would not attend a baptism ceremony organised by the Seventh Day Adventist Church (SDA).
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thabet
Anti-Obama author kicked out of Kenya.
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thabet
Somali converts to Christianity in say they “live in constant fear of persecution” from “fundamentalists”.
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Andrea Useem
Thinking about how to help someone in Kenya find a job:
