Homeland Security News

A new recruiting video from the terror group al-Shabaab posted to YouTube and called "The Path to Paradise" focuses on the journey of three men who left Minnesota to die in Somalia.

The video, which demonstrated high production values, has since been taken down; however, FOX 9 News obtained a copy of the never-before-seen footage of three young men who left Minneapolis six years ago to join training camps in Somalia.

All three of the men profiled in the video -- including the only non-Somali to be recruited -- are now dead, killed either in combat or in suicide attacks.

For Muslims in Minnesota, the end of Ramadan is met with a similar celebration to Christmas for Christians. Families flock to the Mall of America to celebrate the end of 30 days of fasting -- but the video posted on the last day of the holy month puts a different spin on the idea of sacrificing to be closer to God.

Read more: myFox9 (Minn./St. Paul)

A 22-year-old Bangladeshi man has been sentenced to 30 years in prison after pleading guilty to terrorism charges for trying to blow up the Federal Reserve Bank in New York.

Quazi Nafis was sentenced Friday. He pleaded guilty in February after a government sting operation last fall.  Investigators say Nafis selected his target, drove a van loaded with 1,000 pounds of dummy explosives up to the door of the bank, and tried to set off what he thought was a bomb.

They say he used a cellphone he thought had been rigged as a detonator.  But it was all fake. It was part of a federal undercover sting operation.  He told the judge in a letter he was extremely sorry for what he had done.

Source: USA Today

A U.S. citizen and a foreign national charged with financing al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations fighting in overseas wars are being held in a Miami federal detention center.

Gufran Ahmed Kauser Mohammed, 30, and Mohamed Hussein Said, 25, face an indictment charging them with conspiring to provide and attempting to provide material support to three U.S.-designated terrorist organizations that have operated in Iraq, Syria and Somalia, according to authorities.

The case is being prosecuted in Miami because some of the Western Union wire transfers sent by the defendants were transmitted to an FBI “online covert employee” based in Miami who was posing as an al-Qaida fundraiser, recruiter and supplier, according to an indictment.

Read more here: Miami Herald

Former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff says the idea that al Qaeda has been “eliminated” is “overly optimistic.”

As U.S. embassies across the Middle East and North Africa remain shuttered following intelligence of possible terrorist attacks, Chertoff tells “On the Radar” that the most pressing threat seems to be posed by Yemen, which he says has the most active al Qaeda-affiliated network.

“Although they're looking at a broad geographic area as potentially a target that most of this really is centered on Yemen,” Chertoff says, when asked about the State Department’s recent evacuation of all non-emergency staff from that country.

“Not surprisingly, the core al Qaeda, while it may be concerned for its safety, is still functioning,” Chertoff says. “We saw that with some of what emerged when Bin Laden was killed and they took some of that material out of Abbottabad [Pakistan]. We may have forced them to disperse but I still think the network continues to operate.”

Read more: Yahoo News