New Video Shows U.S. Citizen Recruiting Fighters For Muslim Holy War

An English speaker with an American accent appears in a Jihadist video, laughing and talking about ambushing and killing Ethiopian and Somali soldiers.



Breitbart reports:

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) - A man who calls himself an American promotes holy war in Somalia in a video posted this week on an Islamic militant Web site. A U.S. government contractor who tracks extremist propaganda says the footage is the first to show what may be an American with a senior role in al-Shabab, a Somali group the State Department considers a terrorist organization with links to al-Qaida.


The half-hour video features an amateur English-language rap soundtrack and purports to show an operation against Ethiopian troops in Somalia. It appeared on Web sites where al-Qaida and other militant groups often post messages and videos. A caption says it was filmed on July 15, 2008.

A tall man with long dark hair and a wide smile who appears to be in his 20s and gives his nom de guerre as "Abu Mansour al-Amriki," or "the American," urges Muslims around the world to send their children to replace his group's fallen fighters.

"If you can encourage more of your children, and more of your neighbors, and anyone around you to send people ... to this jihad, it would be a great asset for us," he says.

Al-Amriki speaks English with a North American accent and reads verses from the Quran in fluent classical Arabic. He appears to be of European or possibly Arab descent but it was impossible to independently confirm his nationality or where the video was filmed.

The man appears in a scrubby rural clearing filled with short trees and dust. There are few identifying markers indicating he is in Somalia, though several of his companions appear to be Somalis.

In the Somali capital, Mogadishu, a former fighter, Mohamed Muqtar, said he had met the man more than two years ago in the Islamist stronghold of Kismayo, Somalia's third-largest town.

"This is the same man, the American man, I saw in Kismayo two years ago when I was being trained there," he said. "This man was training us how to make land mines and explosives."