Funeral for Minneapolis Somali Suicide Bomber

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One of Five Suspected Somali Suicide Bomber Laid to Rest
Last Edited: Wednesday, 03 Dec 2008, 10:28 PM CST
Created: Wednesday, 03 Dec 2008, 7:05 PM CST
FOX 9 Reporter Tom Lyden

BURNSVILLE, Minn. (FOX 9)—One of the five men suspected to be a suicide bomber who killed himself and 29 others last October in Somalia, was buried Wednesday at a Burnsville Cemetery.

FOX 9 has learned DNA tests have confirmed Shirwa Ahmed was one of five suicide bombers who killed himself and 29 others last October in northern Somalia.

He is also a Minnesotan and a naturalized U.S. citizen.

The FBI helped return Ahmed's remains to his family.

At a Twin Cities cemetery in Burnsville Wednesday afternoon, the suspected suicide bomber was laid to rest.

Shirwa Ahmed, 27, was given a traditional Muslim burial.

Family and friends did not wish to talk about the circumstances of his death.

Community activist Omar Jamal is one of the few who will.

Honestly I look at him seriously as a victim and not as a criminal, I think of him as a young victim," says Jamal.

U.S. intelligence is investigating whether Ahmed and the other missing Minnesota Somalis attended terrorist training camps.

There, lessons are given on explosives and automatic weapons and some of the terrorists seem to speak, with American accents.

FOX 9 learned as many as a 20 young Somali men have vanished from the Twin Cities in the last year.

Some of those suspicions have focused on the Abuubakar As-Sadiq Islamic Center.

It's religious leader, Sheikh Abdirahman was prevented from traveling to Mecca last Saturday.

He tells FOX 9, he believes he was placed on the no-fly list because of the on-going investigation.

During the funeral Wednesday, Shirwa Ahmed was neither celebrated as a martyr, nor condemned as a killer. He was buried simply as a Muslim man, who died so close, yet so far, from home.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Somali
• jihad
• Minneapolis
• Minnesota
• suicide
• bomber