Somali jihadists recruit in U.S., Canada, Europe

CNN) -- The weekend massacre at an upscale shopping center in Kenya is shining a new light on an old concern for Western counter terrorism officials: the recruitment of jihadist fighters from Somali communities in the United States, Canada, and Europe.

It's a concern all too familiar for many Somali-American families in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where young men have been slipping away to join the al Qaeda-affiliated guerrilla group Al-Shabaab for the past few years, sometimes in groups. Several have died, their relatives learning of their deaths in cryptic phone calls or in messages posted online.

One of those killed was Burhan Hassan, who was killed fighting in Somalia. His uncle, Abdirizak Bihi, told CNN that members of the city's Somali community have been trying to counteract the recruitment efforts.

"What we have learned for the last five years is we have to speak out against this," Bihi said.

Al-Shabaab breaks new ground with complex Nairobi attack

In a message on its now-suspended Twitter page, Al-Shabaab named nine people it said were among the gunmen who stormed Nairobi's Westgate Mall on Saturday. Three of them were from the United States and one each was from Canada, Finland and the United Kingdom, it said.

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