• Four Minnesotans jailed for aiding Somali terrorist group al-Shabab

    AP

    This combination of undated photos show, from left, Abdifatah Yusuf Isse, Salah Osman Ahmed and Omer Abdi Mohamed, three of the four ethnic Somalians sentenced Tuesday for aiding the al Qaeda-linked rebel group al-Shabab.

    By David Bailey, Reuters

    MINNEAPOLIS -- A federal judge sentenced four men to prison on Tuesday for helping recruit young men in Minnesota to travel to Somalia and fight for the militant group al-Shabab.

    Investigators believe about 20 young, ethnic Somali men left Minnesota from 2007 to 2009 to go to Somalia to fight for al-Shabab, which the United States has designated a terrorist organization.

    Three men who cooperated with investigators were each sentenced to three years and a fourth man was sentenced to 12 years in prison.

    "These defendants, by providing material support to a designated terrorist organization, broke both the law and the hearts of family members across the Twin Cities," U.S. Attorney B. Todd Jones said in a statement.

    Eighteen men were charged after a four-year investigation. Eight were convicted and the rest are thought to be fugitives or to have been killed in Somalia while fighting for al-Shabab.

    On Tuesday, Omer Abdi Mohamed, 28, was sentenced to 12 years in prison after pleading guilty in July 2011 to one count of conspiring to provide material support to co-conspirators who intended to murder, kidnap, or maim Ethiopian and Somali government troops.

    Mohamed, of Minneapolis, admitted that he helped recruits get plane tickets and helped to raise money for them to travel to Somalia to fight with al-Shabab in 2007.

    Three men who cooperated with investigators were each sentenced to three years in prison by Chief Judge Michael Davis in Minneapolis federal court. Abdifatah Yusuf Isse, Salah Osman Ahmed, and Ahmed Hussein Mahamud had each pleaded guilty to one count of providing material support to al-Shabab.

    Isse, 29, and Ahmed, 30, both of Minneapolis, admitted traveling to Somalia in December 2007, where they both stayed at al-Shabab safe-houses or training camps. They left Somalia together in the spring of 2008.

    Mahamud, 28, a Westerville, Ohio, resident who had lived in a Minneapolis suburb, admitted in February 2012 that he helped provide al-Shabab with money and people from 2008 through February 2011.

    Isse, Ahmed, and Mahamud testified at the trial of another man, Mahamud Said Omar, who was sentenced on Monday to 20 years in prison for his 2009 conviction on five counts for providing money and aiding the travel of men to Somalia for al-Shabab.

    Omar, a Somali citizen who lived legally in the United States, was accused of aiding al-Shabab from September 2007 through August 2009. He was accused of providing hundreds of dollars to al-Shabab for assault rifles and of helping six men travel from Minnesota to Somalia in the fall of 2008.

    Also on Monday, Davis sentenced Minneapolis resident Kamal Said Hassan, 28, to 10 years in prison. He admitted going to Somalia, where he trained at an al-Shabab camp and participated in an attack on Ethiopian soldiers, prosecutors said.

    Hassan pleaded guilty to two counts of aiding al-Shabab and one of lying to investigators.

    The earliest of the travelers left the United States in October and December 2007, followed by more in 2008 and 2009. Two of the travelers, Shirwa Ahmed and Farah Mohamed Beledi are believed to have blown themselves up in attacks in Somalia.

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  • World Trade Center 9/11 museum to charge $20-$25 admission fee

    Mark Lennihan / AP file

    Visitors look over the waterfalls at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum on Feb. 25 in New York.

     

    By Karen Matthews, The Associated Press

    NEW YORK -- Faced with hefty operating costs, the foundation building the 9/11 museum at the World Trade Center has decided to charge an admission fee of $20 to $25 when the site opens next year.

    The exact cost of the mandatory fee has not yet been decided.

    Entry to the memorial plaza with its twin reflecting pools will still be free.

    The decision to charge for the underground museum housing relics of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks has been greeted with dismay by some relatives of 9/11 victims.

    "People are coming to pay their respects and for different reasons," said Janice Testa of Valley Stream, whose firefighter brother Henry Miller Jr. died at the twin towers. "It shouldn't be a place where you go and see works of art. It should more be like a memorial place like a church that there's no entry fee."

    Testa was visiting the memorial Saturday with relatives from Florida.

    The memorial plaza opened in 2011 on the 10th anniversary of the terror attacks, but disputes over funding have pushed the museum's opening back to spring 2014.

    With the cost of operating the memorial and museum projected to be $60 million a year, the memorial foundation voted at its board meeting last week to charge a mandatory admission fee for the museum.

    "This is something that is going to be important and is going to be worth the expenditure," Joseph Daniels, president of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, said Saturday.

    Daniels said the museum will be free during certain hours every week and will offer student and senior discounts.

    Foundation officials had considered an optional donation but rejected the idea.

    "We decided that it's more fiscally prudent to have a straight ticket charge," Daniels said.

    Debra Burlingame, a foundation board member whose brother was the pilot of one of the hijacked planes, said the trade center site is expensive to build on and to protect.

    "The World Trade Center site remains a target of interest among terrorists, so the security has to be robust and relentless," Burlingame said in a phone interview. "There's a big price tag on that.

    "Would we like to be able to say this is free? Absolutely," Burlingame added. But she called it "irresponsible to hope that year after year we have donations that will cover an expense like security."

    Some visitors to the memorial were divided about charging admission to the museum.

    Retired school psychologist Valerie Cericola of Lavalette, N.J., said the entry fee sounded fair.

    "You need to keep it open, you need to keep it running," she said. "It's an expense."

    But Jennifer Reyes, a friend of Cericola's daughter who was born on Sept. 11, 2001, said the museum should ask for an optional donation.

    "I think a donation like $10 would be good," Jennifer said.

    AP radio correspondent Julie Walker contributed to this report. 

    Related: Images of the World Trade Center site from PhotoBlog

    © 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • Massachusetts man gets 17 years for plot to bomb Pentagon, Capitol with model planes

    A Massachusetts man was sentenced to 17 years for a plan to attack the Pentagon with remote-controlled model planes. WHDH's Christa Delcamp reports.

    By NBC News wire services

    BOSTON - A Massachusetts man was sentenced to 17 years in prison on Thursday for a plot to attack the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol building in Washington with explosives loaded into remote-control model airplanes.


    Rezwan Ferdaus, who was arrested in September 2011 and pleaded guilty in July to terrorism-related charges in a deal with prosecutors, told the court he had devoted a lot of time to self-reflection while in jail awaiting sentencing and that he accepted his fate.

    The 26-year-old was arrested after an FBI sting operation in which he requested and took delivery of plastic explosives, three grenades and six assault rifles from undercover FBI agents who he believed were members of the al-Qaida network.

    Ferdaus, a Muslim who has a physics degree from Northeastern University, delivered a long, soft-spoken statement in which he offered no apology for his actions but thanked his family and friends for supporting him.

    He spoke of "a world filled with injustices," but also said "no dehumanization can serve as justification for inhumanity in other places."

    The 17-year sentence, which also includes 10 years of supervised release, was the result of a July plea agreement worked out between his attorneys and prosecutors.

    Read more Security stories from NBC News

    Ferdaus pleaded guilty to charges of attempting to destroy and damage a federal building and attempting to provide material support to terrorists. Prosecutors dropped four other counts that could have raised the total possible sentence to 35 years.

    Before approving the sentence, Stearns told Ferdaus that he was impressed by his self-reflection.

    USAMA via AFP - Getty Images

    A remote-control model of a 1950s U.S. Navy Sabre jet fighter that prosecutors said belonged to Rezwan Ferdaus is seen in this undated photo released by the United States Attorney's Office District of Massachusetts.

    "You don't need any lecture from me. Your statement convinces me that you have the character and the capacity to search your own soul," Stearns said. "I'm going to leave it to you to finish that journey."

    Parents: Depression led to mental illness
    In a letter to Judge Richard Stearns, Ferdaus' parents, Showket and Anamaria Ferdaus, said he slipped into a depression during his senior year at Northeastern, which led to mental illness that was "obviously visible" to his family since late 2009.

    They said they tried to get him to see a doctor but he would not.

    "We took a very cautious approach. After all, he was over 18 and we could not force him to see a doctor. That is the American way. We felt helpless," they wrote in their letter.

    Islamist leader jailed for inciting deadly attack on US Embassy in Tunisia

    Ferdaus' attorney, Miriam Conrad, told reporters after the hearing that her client had shown no interest in terrorism before FBI investigators approached him.

    "There was no evidence ever produced that Mr. Ferdaus sought out contact with any outside groups before the government became involved or even after the government became involved," Conrad said.

    'Wanted to become a terrorist'
    Assistant U.S. Attorney Jack Pirozzolo disagreed.

    "He was a person who decided that he wanted to become a terrorist," Pirozzolo said, adding that before the FBI investigation began, Ferdaus had tried to obtain weapons illegally from an area gun shop and performed surveillance on a train station in his hometown of Ashland, Massachusetts.

    "Those events predated the undercover operation that unfolded here," Pirozzolo said.

    NYT: The case of the biker, the jihadist and the 'terrorist bride'

    Ferdaus planned to carry out the attacks on the Pentagon, located in Arlington, Virginia, and the Capitol using a scale model of a U.S. Navy F-86 Saber fighter jet about the size of a picnic table, which he kept in a storage locker in suburban Boston, authorities said.

    Authorities said the public was never in danger from the explosives, which they said were always under the control of federal officials.

    The government had alleged that Ferdaus told undercover agents of his plans to commit acts of violence against the United States by "decapitating" its "military center" and killing "kafirs," an Arabic term meaning non-believers.

    Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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  • Haqqani network: Terrorist designation adds to captured GI's 'woes'

    Reuters, file

    Jalaluddin Haqqani (R), the Taliban's minister for tribal affairs, points to a map of Afghanistan while his son Naziruddin looks on in Islamabad in October, 2001. The Haqqani insurgent group is named after its patriarch and founder Jalaluddin Haqqani, who was a legendary anti-Soviet mujahideen commander in the 1980s. Back then he was admired by the Americans.

    By NBC News' Mushtaq Yusufzai and Waj Khan

    Senior members of the Haqqani network said that the United States' designation of the militant group as terrorists could endanger the life of an American soldier thought to be in their custody and jeopardize peace talks.

    "The Obama administration and U.S. military commanders know that their soldier Bowe Bergdahl is in our possession," a Haqqani commander told NBC News in a telephone interview from an undisclosed location on Friday.  "He is in our custody, but his government failed to make any sincere effort for his release, and now this new development could add to his woes."

    AFP - Getty Images

    This image grab from an undated video reportedly posted on the internet by Afghan militants on Dec. 25, 2009, allegedly shows U.S. soldier Bowe Robert Bergdahl, who was captured in Afghanistan around six months previously.

    The Haqqanis, a Pashtun tribe with strongholds in southeastern Afghanistan and across the border in Pakistan, have been blamed for an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul and other high-profile assaults in Afghanistan.  The group is also believed to be holding U.S. Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was captured in 2009 in Afghanistan’s Paktika province, bordering Pakistan’s South Waziristan.

    Members of the network say Bergdahl was handed over to the Taliban when a delegation of senior Taliban leaders began peace talks with the U.S. in Qatar in exchange for the top five Taliban commanders from Guantanamo Bay. After those talks failed, the Taliban sources told NBC News that Bergdahl was returned to the Haqqani network.

    Report: US offers Taliban more for captive soldier

    On Friday, U.S. officials announced that the Obama administration would formally designate the Haqqani network as a foreign terrorist organization. The move was part of a complicated political decision as the U.S. withdraws from Afghanistan and pushes for a reconciliation pact to end more than a decade of warfare.  

    But the move would only undermine the United States' efforts in the region, one of the Haqqani commanders told NBC News.

    NYT: White House backs listing Haqqani militant group as terrorists, officials say

    "How (will) their talks with the Taliban bring peace to Afghanistan when they declared us terrorists?" the commander, who asked to remain anonymous, said. "It would further increase their hardship and they should wait for more losses in the coming days." 

    Even as the United States takes down al Qaida leaders, one of the most lethal threats to U.S. troops in Afghanistan is a terror network based in Pakistan that America's outgoing top military leader says is an arm of our so-called ally, Pakistan. NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports.

    Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signed a report to Congress saying the network met criteria for a terrorist designation on Friday, State Department officials told reporters.  


    'Frustrated' dad of kidnapped US soldier takes action

    The Obama administration has been trying to coax Afghanistan's fighting groups into peace talks, offering the prospect of a Qatar-based political office for insurgents and even the transfer of several prisoners being held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Negotiations have been dormant for months, and the Haqqanis have been among the least interested in talking.

    Designation by the State Department as a foreign terrorist organization would bring sanctions such as criminal penalties for anyone providing material support to the group and seizure of any assets in the United States.

    The Haqqani commanders also told NBC News that they were part of the mainstream Afghan Taliban headed by Mulla Mohammad Omar and declaring them as a terrorist group would make it worse for the United States and its allies in in Afghanistan.

    Rachel Maddow reports the breaking news of a video released by the Taliban which they claim is captured U.S. soldier Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl.

    "We are fighters of Islam Emirate of Afghanistan led by our supreme leader Mulla Mohammad Omar," a senior commander said. "Our aim is to expel all the occupying forces from Afghanistan and install a purely Islamic government there."

    The Pentagon welcomed the designation of the group as a terrorist group.

    "The Haqqani Network represents a significant threat to U.S. national security and we will continue our aggressive military action against this threat," said George Little, Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, in a statement. "These new group designations will build on our efforts to degrade the Network's capacity to carry out attacks, including affecting fundraising abilities, targeting them with our military and intelligence resources, and pressing Pakistan to take action."

    The United States accuses Pakistan's intelligence agency of supporting the Haqqani network and using it as a proxy in Afghanistan to gain leverage against the growing influence of its archrival, India.

    Pakistan denies the allegations.

    Photos: Pakistan -- A nation in turmoil

    A senior Pakistani foreign ministry official, who asked to remain nameless because of the sensitivity of the issue, both denied claims that Pakistan was working with the network and dismissed the designation. 

    "If we are sponsoring the Haqqanis, which we are not because they cause more problems for Pakistan than anyone else, then only will this new labeling equate to something," he told NBC News. "No responsible person has proven that we are directing them in any way. Obviously there are contacts, but the U.S. has contacts for the purposes of negotiations, etc. too with these guys."

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