Sudanese government plans closure of refugee camps

Check out this story today.  Note that anyone trying to understand what is happening in Darfur (a popular cause for many in Hollywood) would never know from reading this that it is Islamic supremacism behind the displacement and persecution of the non-Muslim Sudanese population.   From the Hollywood-set and other humanitarians one never hears an outcry against the radical Islamists in power in the Sudan—the closest this article comes is to say the government is Arab-dominated—and the other radical Muslims trying to bring down that government.

Nairobi – The Sudanese government plans to start closing down camps for the displaced population in the war-torn region of Darfur next year, a senior official said on Wednesday.

Some 20 000 housing units are being constructed to accommodate the homeless in the towns of El-Fasher, El-Geneina and Nyala, Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Hasabu Abdel-Rahman told the UN-sponsored Miraya FM radio.

He said the displaced people will have the choice of returning to their village if they do not want to move to the new housing complexes.

Darfur rebel groups criticised the move, calling it a cover by the government to commit further crimes against the Darfur people.

A large segment of the population lives in camps while the Islamic government fights with other rebels, who also are Muslims.

Some 2.5 million people are living in refugee camps in Darfur.

The UN says up to 300 000 people have died and 2.7 million fled their homes since ethnic minority rebels in the region first rose up against the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum in February 2003.

If the camps are closed, will we see a new flood of Sudanese refugees to the US in some sort of emergency action by the State Department?

There have been many positive stories in the news about Sudanese refugees faring well in the US, and others (that didn’t make the mainstream news) not doing well.  See some previous posts on Sudanese refugees in the US in that latter group, here, here and here.

American Somali terror recruiter may have been arrested in the Netherlands

Although the FBI isn’t confirming it, a key person wanted in the Somali missing youth case that we have been following for a year is under arrest in the Netherlands reports the Minneapolis Star Tribune.  He was believed to be the recruiter and financier of the “youths” (former refugees*) who went to Africa to join the Jihad.   The still unnamed suspect was caught at an asylum center—what a surprise!  Hat tip: an ever-watchful friend from Tennessee

A 43-year-old Somali man from Minneapolis was arrested this week in the Netherlands for allegedly financing the recruitment of up to 20 young Somali men from Minnesota to train and fight with terrorists in their homeland.

The arrest appears to be the most significant development yet in one of the most far-reaching counterterrorism investigations since 9/11.

The identity of the man, who was arrested Sunday at an asylum-seeker’s center 45 miles northeast of Amsterdam, was not released. But Special Agent E.K. Wilson of the Minneapolis FBI office confirmed Tuesday that the man was arrested in connection with the ongoing counterterrorism investigation that began here when young men began disappearing in 2007.

“We are aware of this individual and of this arrest. And it is tied to our ongoing Minneapolis investigation,” Wilson said. “We are and have been working closely with Dutch authorities through our legal attaché office in Brussels and coordinating with the Department of Justice Office of International Affairs.”

Dutch prosecutors said in a statement that the man lived in Minneapolis before leaving the United States in November 2008 and arrived in the Netherlands about one month later.

The statement said American authorities asked for the man’s arrest and are seeking to have him extradited. Wilson said he could not confirm or deny that.

According to the Dutch statement, U.S. prosecutors suspect the man of bankrolling the purchase of weapons for Islamic extremists and helping other Somalis travel to Somalia in 2007 and 2008.

[.....] 

At the heart of the federal investigation has been the question of who recruited the men and financed their return to their homeland to fight.

Wilson would not comment on the significance of Sunday’s arrest. But it is apparently the first to involve someone in an alleged leadership role.

Read the whole Star Tribune story, it’s a good summary of where the case stands now.

* The US State Department has admitted over 80,000 Somali refugees to the US in the last 25 years and then last year had to suspend family reunification because widespread immigration fraud was revealed through DNA testing.  That specific program has not yet been reopened, but thousands of Somalis continue to be resettled as I write this.

More on Somali murder in Ft. Morgan: victim identified, sort of

The Ft. Morgan Times reported earlier today that the woman murdered by a fellow Somali immigrant last week is 27-year-old Warsen Aden Abdi.   When no pre-death records could be found, the only thing the Coroner’s office had to go on is the say-so of family members.  

 That is B.S.!   Unless she entered the country illegally (which is possible) someone in the US State Department, Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, the Department of Homeland Security AND the agency that resettled her in the US have records for her.   If they don’t know who she is, that is downright scary because we are told refugees are thoroughly screened and surely fingerprinted in advance of arriving in the US.   Let’s hope they do a better job of tracking down documents on the accused murderer.

The victim of a Nov. 3 fatal stabbing has been positively identified by the Morgan County Coroner’s Office as Warsen Aden Abdi.

Her birth date, provided by family members, was Jan. 1, 1982.

Identification was complicated by lack of pre-death records.

The coroner’s office and Fort Morgan Police Department worked together to obtain postmortem fingerprints, a dental examination and medical examination but were unable to obtain any pre-death records for comparison.

Contact with Immigration Services and Lutheran Services, the sponsoring agency of refugees from East Africa, were unable to provide records.

Identification efforts were finalized by visual examination by family members of the victim.

A suspect in the case, Ahmed Abdi of Greeley, is being held in Morgan County jail on $300,000 bond and is scheduled for a preliminary hearing Dec. 16.

Was this another honor killing?  Is that why there was an early gag order on information being released about the case?

Since the last names of the victim and the murder suspect are the same, I think it’s time to raise the Muslim ‘honor killing’ question.

Going bonkers in Britain over genetic testing of asylum seekers

From the Associated Press:

LONDON — Britain is using genetic tests on some African asylum seekers in an effort to catch those who are lying about their nationality, drawing criticism from scientists and provoking outrage from rights groups.

The United Kingdom Border Agency launched the pilot project in September amid suspicions there might be a large number of asylum applicants lying about their home countries. An agency spokesman said Britain was the only country using genetic tests in this way.

Experts, however, say the tests are based on flawed science and there’s no way genetic swabs can provide meaningful evidence regarding nationality.

[....]

The government argues such tests can provide valuable – although not conclusive – evidence in assessing whether or not asylum seekers are telling the truth about their country of origin.

So far, the tests are being used only on people who claim to be from Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Uganda and Sudan, though if successful, officials say the plan could be rolled out further.

Of course they want to find out if the African is from a country where they might be persecuted and in danger or not. 

Last year, nearly 26,000 people applied in Britain; of the more than 19,000 cases where decisions were made, 3,725, or 19 percent, were granted asylum. People from more repressive or chaotic countries, like Sudan or Somalia, often have a better chance of gaining asylum than those from more stable countries like Kenya.

Definitely read the whole story.  It also tells us that there is other testing that may be done and how the tests can be used to track terrorists.

Besides genetic tests, British officials are also performing isotope analysis of asylum seekers’ hair and nail samples. Scientists can look at the composition of certain elements like oxygen or strontium in hair and nails to see where a person has been.

How is this for a brilliant move?  NOT!

In a landmark decision, the European Court of Human Rights recently ordered Britain to destroy nearly 1 million DNA samples and fingerprints on its database – samples taken from children, people who had never been charged or people acquitted of crimes.

This is the most interesting section of the AP story.  Our very own Secretary of Homeland Security hasn’t given any of this any thought!   Doesn’t she know that the State Department suspended all family reunification  from Africa after discovering widespread fraud through DNA testing more than a year ago and that they are in the process of revising the whole program?  Most of us are expecting that DNA testing WILL BE EMPLOYED for at least family reunfication when the so-called P-3 program is reopened.  Napolitano acts like she doesn’t know about all this!

Concerned about potential fraud, the Bush administration launched a pilot DNA testing project in 2007 to vet applicants to a program that allows family members of African refugees already in the United States to join them.

The project, which wrapped up in March 2008, found an extremely high rate of fraud – 87 percent – among applicants claiming to be related to each other, the State Department said, and the resettlement program was suspended until those concerns could be addressed. The U.S. does not use genetic tests to try to prove nationality.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said in London on Thursday that the U.S. has other ways of probing a person’s country of origin, such as testing language skills.

“I haven’t thought about it,” she said of the British attempt to match DNA to nationality. “We have a variety of ways we can use when we think someone is not telling the truth.”

Oh, and what might those be?

Obama starving Somalis

I’ve purposefully titled this post ‘Obama starving Somalis’ to make my point that if the Bush Administration were still in control in Washington, this article in Foreign Policy would surely have blamed Bush.  Instead the article about a new policy position that cuts humanitarian aid and warns that a humanitarian crisis is at hand, blames the “United States,” the  “US Treasury Department,” “Washington,” and the “US government”—-but no mention of the fact that the Obama Administration is responsible now!

You can read the article yourself, it begins:

The United States is willfully letting millions of Somalis go hungry in its drive to hunt down terrorists.

A year ago this article would have begun with the sentence:  “The Bush Administration is willfully letting……”

Columbus Somalis complain that anti-terror laws hinder remittance business

Columbus, Ohio has the second largest Somali refugee population* in the US, but banks there have halted remittance programs that allow Somalis to send money ‘home’  fearing the money will end up in the hands of terrorists.  From the Columbus Dispatch:

For months, Somalis living in Columbus have complained that it has become increasingly difficult to send money home to family members because of banking-industry fears that the funds could end up with terrorists.

Huntington, JPMorgan Chase and Charter One are among the banks that have closed accounts set up by remittance companies, said Omar Tarazi, a local lawyer who has worked with the Somali American Chamber of Commerce and several remittance companies.

Somali leaders said remittances that refugees send home are a lifeline to families and friends struggling in the war-torn African nation. It has few banks, so remittance companies are crucial to sending money home.

The leaders say banks fear being held liable if authorities discover that the money is funding extremists. The Patriot Act requires due diligence of banks in making sure that funds are tracked.

According to the U.S. State Department’s Web site, remittances totaling $1 billion were sent to Somalia from around the world in 2008.

Wow!  That’s a lot of money.

*For new readers:

The US State Department has admitted over 80,000 Somali refugees to the US in the last 25 years and then last year had to suspend family reunification because widespread immigration fraud was revealed through DNA testing.

Somali jihadists recruiting in refugee camps

According to Human Rights Watch, UNHCR doesn’t seem able to stop the recruitment by Al Shabaab in camps it runs in Kenya and elements of the Kenyan government are accused of participating.   This is a long report on an issue I’ve been hearing a lot about lately and thought it would be important for refugee advocates to be aware of.

African-Americans vs. African immigrants (again!)

This is a theme we have reported on several times in the past.*  Violence is on the rise in traditional African- American communities where numbers of African (largely Muslim) immigrants are on the increase.   The difference here is that it’s the New York Times publishing the politically incorrect news.   Hat tip:  a friend from Tennessee.

Their fear and frustration are shared by many local West African immigrants, whose fast-growing presence in the neighborhood — and in the city over all — has been accompanied by increasing tensions with the local black American residents.

“They think they’re better than black people,” James Carroll, a retired Army specialist standing in front of a busy convenience store, said of the West African immigrants. “We’re supposed to be one community — we’re supposed to be able to get along — but they don’t give it a chance.”

Some of the tension can be attributed to cultural differences that all immigrants face, though the West Africans in Claremont, as conservative Muslims, have the added challenge of adjusting to a post-9/11 New York. But resentment and mistrust has escalated to actual violence, and, they say, left them feeling under siege.

After reports of nearly two dozen attacks on West African immigrants in the last two years, community leaders reached out to the police, who interviewed 17 Africans in the neighborhood and filed 11 criminal complaints. Two of those were deemed hate crimes, including an attack in June that left a Gambian immigrant hospitalized for eight days.

They have made no arrest in either bias case, but a police mobile truck with a video camera now stands outside the mosque.

The reporter tells us that most of these African immigrants are illegally in the US and points out the rapid increase in population in Bronx neighborhoods.

The African population in the Bronx has grown considerably in recent years: the census reported 12,063 sub-Saharan Africans in 1990, while the most recent census estimate was 61,487.

African-Americans feel their communities are being invaded—no kidding!

Zain Abdullah, an assistant professor of religion, race and ethnicity at Temple University in Philadelphia, says it is common for African immigrants to suffer harassment when they settle in traditionally black neighborhoods in big cities, like Detroit, New York and Philadelphia.

“Many African-Americans feel that the influx of Africans coming in represents a kind of invasion,” he said. “Culturally, African-Americans have always imagined themselves as Africans, or at least of African descent, but they might have never encountered Africans from the continent. The actual encounter is shocking.”

Isn’t diversity beautiful!   Incidentally, it is into this neighborhood that the International Rescue Committee is resettling Bhutanese refugees as well.  It almost seems that stirring up racial and ethnic tension is the game plan!

* If you would like to find more locations in the US where American Blacks have come in conflict with immigrants, use our search function.   You might search for African- Americans and immigrants and you will come up with lots of previous posts on the topic.

Canada slow to recognise and take action on immigration fraud

I won’t pretend to understand how Canada’s immigration system works, but I’m bringing you this column simply to bring to your attention that Canada has been slow to take action on fraud involving Somalis among others.  As a matter of fact, we’ve heard that Somali Omar Jamal, convicted of immigration fraud in Tennessee a few years back, and now the go-to guy for the mainstream media in Minneapolis (and everywhere!) came in through Canada.  Note we have 6 pages of posts that include references to Jamal, here.

The Canadian government has decided to go on the offensive and tell its side of the story in connection with allegations that its officials mishandled the case of Suaad Hagi Mohamud, the Canadian of Somali origin who was detained in Kenya on suspicion that someone else was using her passport to travel to Canada. Such a move by Ottawa is relatively rare. In the case of Maher Arar, who was awarded more than $10-million by the Canadian government on the grounds that it had contributed to his being imprisoned and mistreated by the Syrians, Canadian investigations focused on whether actions by our security and intelligence agencies had been appropriate and not whether there was any substance to allegations Arar had connections with possible terrorist organizations or their supporters.

What Ottawa should also do is let the public know just how massive a problem some of our missions overseas face on a daily basis when it comes to receiving fraudulent applications to come to Canada. The Americans have been more up-front in this regard. Last year they suspended their Priority Three (P-3) refugee resettlement program, which was administered largely from the U. S. mission in Nairobi and involved mainly Somali and Ethiopian applicants. After carrying out DNA checks on sponsors in the United States and relatives being sponsored for immigration from Africa, it was discovered that more than 80% of the latter were not, in fact, related to the sponsors at all and were trying to enter the U. S. under false pretenses.

That reminds me.  I wonder if we have reinstated the fraud-ridden family reunification program that the State Department suspended last year, here.   Hey, commenter ’Knowing,’ do you know?

Somalia: Jihadist bra ban update!

Yes, you read that right.  Back in August we first heard about the ISLAMIC hardline terrorist group, Al Shabaab, banning women in Somalia from wearing bras, here.   Now comes word that the punishments have begun and women caught firming themselves up by wearing bras are being whipped and forced to publically “shake” their breasts.  I kid you not!  

From The Mail:

A hardline Islamist group in Somalia has begun publicly whipping women for wearing bras that they claim violate Islam as they are ‘deceptive’.

The insurgent group Al Shabaab has sent gunmen into the streets of Mogadishu to round up any women who appear to have a firm bust, residents claimed yesterday.

The women are then inspected to see if the firmness is natural, or if it is the result of wearing a bra.

If they are found wearing a bra, they are ordered to remove it and shake their breasts, residents said.

Al Shabaab, which seeks to impose a strict interpretation of Sharia law over all Somalia, also amputated a foot and a hand each from two young men accused of robbery earlier this month.

They have also banned movies, musical ringtones, dancing at wedding ceremonies and playing or watching soccer.

‘Al Shabaab forced us to wear their type of full veil and now they order us to shake our breasts,’ a resident, Halima, told Reuters, adding that her daughters had been whipped on Thursday.

‘They are now saying that breasts should be firm naturally, or just flat.’

Read on, there is more.

Isn’t Shariah Law great?