Young men from Somali communities in US missing: Report

Counter-terrorism officials in Europe and Australia also are investigating similar reports in their countries. Families of three teenagers earlier this month went public in Minneapolis, home to the largest Somali enclave in the US, saying their children had disappeared in recent months and then turned up in Somalia, the paper added.

The families were spurred to action in part after twin October terror bombings in their homeland. One of them is believed to have been the first suicide bombing carried out by an American, according to US law-enforcement officials. Somali community leaders were quoted as saying that the families are assisting authorities to find out how the young men, some of them immigrants and others American-born, were recruited.

“Two of the mothers received phone calls from kids saying that they were in Somalia, in Mogadishu city, saying that they cannot talk and that they will see them in heaven,” Omar Jamal, executive director of Minneapolis’s Somali Justice Advocacy Center told the paper.

US Somali community leaders estimate that as many as 20 men may have left the US to fight in the past two years.