The arrest of a Chanhassen man last week shows that young Somali men in the Twin Cities are still returning to their homeland to fight, but a federal investigation of the exodus has driven the recruitment of the would-be fighters "underground," a local Somali leader said Wednesday.
"We hope this pressure will stop the recruitment process," said Omar Jamal, director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center. "The sooner it comes to an end, the better for the Somali community."
Jamal also said that while nobody seems to have an accounting of how many local Somali men returned to Somalia to fight with a group allegedly linked to al-Qaida, it is probably greater than the 20 often cited in media accounts.
"The numbers now are probably much higher than 20. Definitely," he said.
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