Amina Farah Ali had become the go-to person for Somalis in their Minnesota city wanting to donate items to refugees displaced by violence in their homeland. But she and another woman, Hawo Mohamed Hassan, were actually using the pretense of charity to send money to a violent terrorist group in the African country, prosecutors allege. They also claim the women made direct pleas in teleconference calls for others “to support violent jihad in Somalia.” The two women, both US citizens living in Rochester, are among 14 people named in indictments unsealed Thursday in Minneapolis, San Diego, and Mobile, Alabama – accused of being part of what the government called “a deadly pipeline” that routed money and fighters from the US to Al-Shabab. Both women said they are innocent. “We are not terrorists,” Ali said after she and Hassan made their first appearances Thursday in US District Court in St. Paul. The indicted also include Omar Hammami, an Alabama man now known as Abu Mansour Al-Amriki, or “the American” – who has become one of Al-Shabab's most high-profile members and appeared in a jihadist video in May 2009. The group's fighters, numbering several thousand strong, are battling Somalia's weakened government and have been branded a terrorist group with ties to Al-Qaeda by the US and other Western countries. Attorney General Eric Holder said the indictments reflect a disturbing trend of recruitment efforts targeting US residents to become terrorists. Of the 14 people named in indictments Thursday, at least half are US citizens and 12 of them are out of the country, including 10 men from Minnesota who allegedly left to join Al-Shabab. Seven of those 10 Minnesota men named had been charged in earlier indictments or criminal complaints. Ali, 33, and Hassan, 63, are the only two people indicted Thursday who remain in the US. They are both charged with conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. Ali faces multiple counts o f providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, and Hassan faces three counts of lying to the FBI.
