re: Minnesota Somali Fraud Plot Deepens: Fake Childcare Centers Caught Donating to Democrats

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As 808 indicates above, this is but the tip of the iceberg when it comes to both politicians and private citizens expropriating taxpayers dollars for personal gain. Beyond the scale of this particular scheme, the added dimension of using Welfare Fraud to fund Islamic terrorism is what makes this particular news item noteworthy.

The ability of the Islamic State in Somalia to criminally exploit the Somalian diaspora in the United States for funding terrorism is eerily reminiscent of the vast criminal networks used by ISIS to fund its jihadist activities across the Levant. Not coincidentally, ISIS was another terror group that was itself connected to Deep State skullduggery.

With that in mind, isn’t it a most peculiar coincidence that Somalia has emerged as an international hub of terrorism during roughly the same period this massive Somalian fraud scheme was initiated? The global ambitions of this terror network indeed became evident in late 2018 when a Somali national was implicated in church bombing plot in Italy, linking his terror cell to Somalia.

I suspect that if Repubes actually somehow manage to maintain control in the midterm elections, we will have endless congressional hearings investigating this matter. Yet ultimately we will be told that no conclusive proof exists that any political operatives in Minnesota or Washington had knowledge that this money laundering scheme was used to fund global terrorism.



Islamic State-Somalia: A Growing Global Terror Concern…

Growing Linkages to International Terror

Islamic State-Somalia’s international ambitions were noticeable relatively early in its existence. The international composition of Islamic State-Somalia’s fighters provides it with opportunities to plot international terror, for example by sending foreign fighters to carry out attacks back in their home countries or having those foreign fighters provide online coaching to extremists back in their home countries to carry out attacks. As will be outlined below, there are indicators that Islamic State-Somalia is eyeing attacks outside Somalia.

In late 2018, just three years after Islamic State-Somalia’s foundation, a 20-year-old Somali national identified as Omar Mohsin Ibrahim (known as Anas Khalil during his time fighting for the Islamic State in Libya) was arrested in the southern Italian city of Bari for plotting to bomb churches, particularly in Vatican City. He was allegedly in contact with members of the Islamic State in Somalia, specifically “one of its operational cells.”

The plan reportedly was to make rudimentary improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and place them in various churches around Italy, beginning with the bombing of St. Peter’s Basilica. According to the United Nations Panel of Experts on Somalia, the “Vatican plot represents the first instance in which ISIL elements in Somalia were directly linked to an attempted terrorist attack outside the country.”

However, according to the same U.N. panel, “intercepted communications indicate that ‘Anas Khalil’ devised the plan to plant a bomb in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome on 25 December, Christmas Day, of his own accord and was not directly tasked by ISIL operatives outside the country.”Nevertheless, stored in Omar Mohsin Ibrahim’s phone contacts were entries corresponding with several key leaders of Islamic State-Somalia ostensibly to seek guidance and support in this effort (though ultimately the exact nature of any conversations was unclear). The stored phone contacts included Abdullahi Mohamud Yusuf, or Al-Majerteni (different from the other ‘al-Majerteni’ mentioned above), one of the top leaders in Islamic State-Somalia prior to his arrest earlier in 2018. So although it is probable that Khalil’s Vatican plot was not directly ordered by the Islamic State’s leaders in Somalia, it seems likely that its leadership, particularly Al-Majerteni, was in the know given the likely communication between the plotter and the group.

Several years later, there were renewed links between the group and global terror plotting. In March 2024, Swedish authorities arrested four individuals in the Stockholm suburb of Tyresö for preparing “terrorism offenses.” A few weeks later, a Somali imam in the same city was arrested as part of the same attack plotting. Further investigations into this cell revealed links to Islamic State-Somalia, though it remains unclear at the time of publication if Islamic State-Somalia directly oversaw or tasked the cell with the attack plot. While the exact nature of what the cell was in the midst of planning is opaque, Swedish authorities stated this cell was also linked to a May 2024 shooting at the Israeli embassy in Sweden and was integrally connected to criminal gangs in Tyresö and its surroundings and actively seeking to recruit from them. The Swedish cell was also reportedly in contact with and guided other pro-Islamic State individuals in Europe, specifically an individual in Spain who sought to target Jewish individuals.

It is noteworthy that Abdulqadir Mumin himself once lived in Gothenburg, Sweden, in the early 2000s, where he was the imam at a local mosque and investigated there for extremism. Islamic State financial receipts reviewed by the Bridgeway Foundation also documented significant transfers from Sweden to East Africa between 2017 and 2018 — by members of the Somali diaspora — which were also directed by the Islamic State nodes in both Kenya and the Middle East.96 The Swedish case illustrates the potential for Islamic State-Somalia to use diaspora communities in the West to carry out attacks, much as al-Qa`ida used British Pakistanis for attack plotting in the United Kingdom in the 2000s and ISK has used Central Asians in Europe in recent years….