A new video from al Shabaab purportedly shows the terror group calling for an attack on Mall of America, in Bloomington, Minnesota. The iconic mall is but one of three targets the Somali terror group specifically names, including West Edmonton Mall in Canada and the Oxford Street shopping area in London.
The video, which is roughly 6 minutes long and contains graphic images, depict terrorists celebrating the 2013 Westgate Mall attack in Nairobi, Kenya, which killed more than 60 people.
The narrator has his face wrapped in a black-and-white kaffiyeh-like scarf and is wearing a camouflage jacket. He spoke with a clear British accent and appeared to be of Somali origin. He accused Kenyan troops in Somalia of committing abuses against Somali Muslims.
He ended the video by calling on Muslim men to attack other shopping malls in Western countries, while an image of the Mall of America is shown to viewers complete with GPS coordinates. The mall says it is ramping up its security in response, but publicly U.S. officials say there was “no credible” evidence to suggest a plot to attack the U.S. mall was hatched.
“We will continue to monitor events with the help of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies,” Mall of America said in a statement. “As always, we take any potential threat seriously and respond appropriately. Mall of America has implemented extra security precautions, some may be noticeable to guests, and others won’t be. We will continue to follow the situation, along with law enforcement, and will remain vigilant as we always do in similar situations.”
However, privately, intel officials are taking the threat very seriously considering the state’s track-record of homegrown terrorists in Somali Muslim communities. Officials tell PPD they believe the group is rapidly gaining in capability, though they do not yet see them as a threat on the level of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. But that only serves as another reason for concern, officials say. The group aims to gain prominence and stature with an attack rivaling AQAP, such as one on the Mall of America.
Jim Kallstrom, the former assistant director of the FBI’s New York office, said the FBI has a “huge job in front of them.”
“You look at the Mall of America, you look at all the malls then you start to backtrack and say you know it would be nice if we knew what comes and goes into the country,” Kallstrom told Fox News on Sunday. “We don’t have a clue.”
The Department of Homeland Security and FBI issued a joint statement Sunday saying that both agencies were aware of the video, and have increased communication between agencies to “mitigate these types of threats.”
“In recent months, the FBI and DHS have worked closely with our state and local public safety counterparts and members of the private sector, to include mall owners and operators, to prevent and mitigate these types of threats,” the statement said.
The radical Islamist group has attracted several homegrown radical volunteers from Minneapolis, who began traveling to Somalia in 2007 to join the group. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said on NBC’s Meet The Press that “there needs to be an awareness.
“We’re in a new phase now, and I’m afraid that this most recent video release reflects that,” Joshnson said during an appearance on ABC’s This Week.
Al Shabaab, which was designated as a terrorist organization by the State Department in 2008, claimed responsibility for a Friday attack on a hotel in Somalia’s capital that killed 25 people and wounded 40, the country’s government said Saturday. As one Islamic terrorist drove an explosives-packed vehicle through the gate of the Central Hotel, a second blew himself up inside.
A statement from Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke’s office confirmed government officials were meeting at the Central Hotel at the time of the attack, and that Mogadishu’s deputy mayor and two legislators were among the dead. It was unclear whether the government’s report of 25 dead included the two bombers.
Despite the loss of key strongholds in Somalia, al Shabaab, which has strong ties to al Qaeda, continues to successfully carry out attacks in the capital city of Mogadishu, as well as other locations.
This is the second attack on a hotel in Mogadishu in less than a month. On Jan. 22, three Somali nationals were killed when a suicide car bomber blew himself up at the gate of a hotel housing the advance party of the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who visited the country days later.
Al Shabaab controlled much of Mogadishu during the years 2007 to 2011, but was pushed out of Somalia’s capital and other major cities by African Union forces. Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud vowed to keep them out of Mogadishu in a statement used to condemn the Friday attack. He promised the group’s increased attacks would not derail efforts by his government to restore peace to Somalia, a country that is trying to recover after decades of war.
In Kenya, the government dismissed the Al Shabaab video.
“They’re using propaganda to legitimize what cannot be legitimized. When you lead a group to go and attack a shopping mall and kill innocent shoppers that cannot be legitimized, those were not soldiers,” Interior Ministry spokesman Mwenda Njoka said. “Muslims also died in the Westgate attack. It’s in our interest to ensure Somalia is stabilized because the instability affects us. The video is cheap propaganda trying to re-write history and to get more support from those support them.”
Officials in Kenya outright dismissed and downplayed the release and content of the al Shabaab video.
“They’re using propaganda to legitimize what cannot be legitimized. When you lead a group to go and attack a shopping mall and kill innocent shoppers that cannot be legitimized, those were not soldiers,” Interior Ministry spokesman Mwenda Njoka said. “Muslims also died in the Westgate attack. It’s in our interest to ensure Somalia is stabilized because the instability affects us. The video is cheap propaganda trying to re-write history and to get more support from those support them.”
