Uganda bomb blast shows Al Shabaab’s intent to attack the US homeland
By ANITuesday, July 13, 2010
NEW YORK - The killing of Nate Henn, an American aid volunteer along with 74 people in Uganda bomb blast, has raised new concerns about Al Shabaab’s intent to attack the US homeland.
Henn was killed in a terrorist bomb blast in Uganda aimed at people watching the World Cup soccer final on Sunday.
Henn, 25, of Wilmington Del., a former college rugby player, was known by his Ugandan nickname, Oteka - “The Strong One”, the Daily News reports.
An FBI official said agents in the New York City field office opened a case on the death of Henn, a volunteer for a Christian aid group working with former child soldiers, as G-men flew from from the US Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, to the blast sites.
The suicide bombers struck the Kyadondo Rugby Club and an Ethiopian restaurant in Kampala. The severed head of a Somali suicide bomber was found at one of the grisly scenes.
A terror group aligned with Al Qaeda, Al Shabaab, claimed responsibility for its first strike outside its Somalia base, the Daily News reports.
Shabaab leader Sheikh Ali Muhammad Raghe hailed the bombings as the best response to the activities of the Ugandan peacekeeping troops in Mogadishu, the Somali capital.
No plots have been detected here, but the FBI has long tracked St. Paul’s large Somali immigrant community because dozens of young men have traveled to their parents’ homeland to join the extremist group.
Several Somali-Americans became suicide bombers in Mogadishu, as Shabaab has vowed solidarity with the Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the paper reports. (ANI)
