Somali president, in Minn., meets with grieving families

For three months, Abayte Ahmed has lived with the memory of finding a photo of her son's bloody corpse displayed on a Somali news website for all the world to see.

For three months, she has cried and agonized and wondered why her boy, Jamal, 20, abruptly left his home and family and a safe life in Minneapolis last November to return to the lawless streets of Mogadishu to train and fight with Al-Shabab, a terrorist group thought to have ties to Al-Qaida.

On Sunday, Ahmed, still grieving over the death of her son in July and desperate for answers, traveled to the St. Paul Hotel to share her pain with Somalia's highest-ranking leader -- President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.

"He said, 'I'm so sorry,' " Abayte Ahmed said after she and the families of two other young Minneapolis men killed in Somalia earlier this year met privately with the president. "He was sincere."

The meeting, arranged on short notice, was one of the primary reasons Ahmed traveled thousands of miles from Mogadishu to Minneapolis. It was the first visit to Minneapolis by a sitting Somali president and is part of a multicity tour of the United States to shore up support for Ahmed's fledgling government in its war with Al-Shabab. The terrorist group is seen as the greatest threat to Ahmed's regime.

Minnesota is home to an estimated 70,000 Somalis, the largest Somali population in the United States, and perhaps in North America.

Somalia, considered by some as the most failed nation in the world, hasn't had a functioning government since 1991, when civil war broke out between clan-based warlords. Ahmed, an imam, became president in February and has the support of the U.S. government and many Twin Cities Somalis. But his control over Mogadishu, the country's capital, is confined to the airport and the port.

None of that mattered Sunday to Abayte Ahmed -- who is not related to the president -- or the other relatives. What they wanted, and got, were assurances from Somalia's leader that he would publicly denounce Al-Shabab, find out who was responsible for persuading their sons to leave Minnesota and do everything in his power to ensure the safe return of those local Somalis still believed to be alive and fighting for Al-Shabab.

Up to 20 young Somali men from Minneapolis are believed to have been recruited by Al-Shabab in the past two years to train and fight. Five have died, and a sixth man -- a Muslim convert from Minneapolis -- also is believed to have been killed. In recent months, three other Somali-American men pleaded guilty in federal court in Minneapolis to terror-related charges stemming from their travels to Somalia. More indictments are expected.

A promise to families

The meeting between Ahmed and the families, which almost didn't happen, came about shortly after noon Sunday after hours of telephone conversations between the president's staff and local Somalis.

By 1:30 p.m., Abayte Ahmed and the relatives of two other Somali men who have been killed, along with the family of another man who is alive in Mogadishu, waited patiently in the lobby of the St. Paul Hotel for the face-to-face meeting.

After about 15 minutes, they were summoned to the hotel's 10th floor, where they were escorted by security agents down a long hall to a corner suite overlooking the Mississippi River.

Once inside, Abayte Ahmed and the mother of Burhan Hassan, 18, who was killed this summer, and the grandmother of Mohamoud Hassan, 23, who died only last month, took seats facing Ahmed.

Speaking in Somali, the president greeted the women.

Within minutes, Abdirizak Bihi, the uncle of Burhan Hassan, addressed the president, telling him of the potential of each of the slain young men and what their loss has done to their families.

Burhan Hassan, also known as Little Bashir, was a stellar student at Minneapolis Roosevelt High School who dreamed of becoming a doctor or lawyer.

Jamal Bana, who helped his mother care for several disabled siblings and his bedridden father, studied engineering at Minneapolis Community and Technical College.

And Mohamoud Hassan, the main caretaker for his grandmother, was an engineering student at the University of Minnesota and vice president of the school's Somali Student Union.

In the intimate conversation that followed, the president expressed his condolences to the women for the loss of their loved ones and condemned the actions of those responsible for recruiting the men.

Said the president, according to Bihi, "I will promise you that I condemn them here and everywhere I go."

Several of the Somali men who have pleaded guilty in federal court have said that they were recruited by Al-Shabab.

At one point, Ahmed told the families, "We are in the same boat," recounted Abdirizak Bihi.

Ahmed also told the women that he shared their grief.

He said "these kids did not die to the parents alone" and told Zienab Bihie, mother of Burhan Hassan, one of the youngest recruits, that Burhan's picture "is stuck in my mind, and I think about this all the time," according to Bihi.

The families and the president also talked about what might have influenced the young men to leave. Some have speculated that a combination of face-to-face encounters with religious extremists and Al-Shabab training and propaganda videos, some of which could be viewed online, were used to recruit.

Ahmed also told the relatives that he has heard that Al-Shabab uses drugs to manipulate recruits to carry out suicide attacks.

The first of the Minneapolis men to die was Shirwa Ahmed, 26, a former college student who died in October 2008 in a coordinated series of suicide bombings in northern Somalia that killed more than two dozen people. He is believed to be the first U.S. citizen to die as a suicide bomber.

"Some of these young boys were given drugs, they were brainwashed," Mohamed Ali Nur, the Somali ambassador to Kenya and a close associate of Ahmed, said after the meeting. "You wonder why [the young men] did this. Someone who is good at school and going to college."

A parting prayer

Before parting ways, President Ahmed led the families in prayer. Holding hands, Ahmed prayed for the well-being of the families and that someday they will get the answers they are seeking.

He also prayed that someday soon, Somalia's war will end and its people can live in peace.

Hours later, Ahmed stood center stage at Northrop Auditorium on the campus of the University of Minnesota and was greeted with deafening cheers and a standing ovation by several thousand people.

He said he was "deeply saddened" by the young men who were "lured back," and made a direct plea to whoever is recruiting the men to return to Somalia to fight.

"That is against our faith. That is against our Somali culture and that is against humanity," he said.

Staff writer Chao Xiong contributed to this report. ashah@startribune.com • 612-673-4488 richm@startribune.com • 612-673-4425