“Minnesota men” go to trial (13)

The recordings made by conspirator turned informant Abdirahman Bashir took center stage for three hours at the trial of the three “Minnesota men” on Friday. They came in “fast and furious,” including so many items of interest that I found it hard to keep up as they were played in court. I therefore overlooked several in my post yesterday.

Here is one with a little help from the Star Tribune’s Stephen Montemayor:

The topic of attacks on U.S. soil also resurfaced Friday in other recorded discussions. Daud in one tape suggested that their emir could one day send them back into their home country. Abdirizak Warsame — a co-defendant who pleaded guilty in the case earlier this year — boasted about being able to make homemade rockets. And Farah was recorded as saying he had heard that thousands of ISIL fighters had been sent back.

“You know what they did? They acted like they were Syrian refugees,” Farah said. “Italy, U.K., they just went with the wave.”

Here is another with a little help from KSTP digital report Jenny Lissarrague, referring to defendant Guled Omar. I didn’t do justice to this one:

Omar then talked about getting ISIS fighters to come into the United States through Mexico, according to the audio recording and transcript.

He said he wanted to “go through Mexico to learn all the spots there, make connections there, send some brothers back over there,” according to the recordings.

“They’re coming into this country as immigrants … Imagine what they could do. They’ll do crazy damage,” Omar said. “Wallah [I swear], we have a big opportunity.”

I wanted to make sure that readers following this series didn’t miss these items.

Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.

Responses