Touting “significant progress” in a “critical investigation,” federal authorities on Monday announced charges against eight people in a long-running probe into how dozens of young Americans were recruited to join an Al Qaeda-linked group in Somalia.

Although several indictments in the case were previously unsealed, the question of who helped persuade – and pay for – more than 20 young men from the Minneapolis area to train and fight with the group had remained largely unanswered.

Court documents unsealed Monday explicitly accuse three men, Cabdulaahi A. Faarax, Abdiweli Y. Isse and Mahamud S. Omar, of encouraging others in the Minneapolis area to join al-Shabaab, which is fighting to establish a Muslim state in Somalia and recently pledged its allegiance to Usama bin Laden.

“The recruitment of young people from Minneapolis and other U.S. communities to fight for extremists in Somalia has been the focus of intense investigation for many months,” Justice Department Assistant Attorney General Kris said in a statement. “Those who sign up to fight or recruit for al-Shabaab’s terror network should be aware that they may well end up as defendants in the United States.”

In late 2007, according to the Justice Department, Faarax and others met at a mosque in Minneapolis, where they called associates in Somalia to discuss the need for more Minnesota men to join the fight.

The Justice Department did not identify which mosque Faarax and the others visited. However, a source told FOX News that some of the defendants identified Monday have ties to the Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic Center in St. Paul, one of the Minneapolis area's most popular mosques.

Many of the men recruited to join al-Shabaab attended the Abubakar mosque, and it has become a subject of speculation among those who’ve been watching the case.

A call to the mosque was answered by a machine, and efforts to reach the mosque's director were not successful. However, in March, the mosque posted a statement online saying any suggestions it played a role in recruitment of young men to Somalia were untrue and "unfair."

"Abubakar Center didn't recruit, finance, or otherwise facilitate in any way, shape, or form the travel of those youth," the statement said.

Faarax’s efforts allegedly went beyond his time at the mosque. At a Minneapolis home later in 2007, he appealed to others to fight “jihad” in Somalia like he had earlier in the year, the Justice Department said.

Since that time, more than a dozen more men – all but one of them of Somali descent – left the Minneapolis area for Somalia, according to the Justice Department.

Isse allegedly raised funds for recruits to travel to Somalia. He told members of the Minneapolis community that any contributions would help send young men to Saudi Arabia to study the Koran, the Justice Department said.

In October, Faarax and Isse were secretly charged via criminal complaint with conspiring to kill or injure people outside the United States.

Three days earlier, a car carrying Faarax and four others was stopped for speeding by a police officer outside Las Vegas, but the officer determined there was no legal basis to detain Faarax, even though Faarax was on a terrorism watchlist.

Two days after that, a taxicab dropped Faarax and Isse at a border crossing along the U.S.-Mexican border, according to court documents.

Both are now believed to be outside the United States, and authorities are trying to track them down.

Meanwhile, U.S. authorities are working to extradite Omar, a Somali citizen with U.S. resident status, to the United States.

He was secretly indicted in August for allegedly funding travel from Minneapolis to Somalia for young men to train with and fight for al-Shabaab. Law enforcement authorities in the Netherlands arrested Omar earlier this month.

Indictments against five others -- Ahmed Ali Omar, Khalid Abshir, Zakaria Maruf, Mohamed Hassan and Mustafa Salat – were also unsealed Monday.

They have been charged with several terrorism-related offenses, including providing material support to terrorists. All three are believed to be outside the United States and have yet to be arrested.

More indictments in the case are expected, a source said.

The latest charges were announced at a joint FBI-U.S. Attorney's Office press conference in Minneapolis on Monday afternoon.

Until Monday, authorities had remained mostly quiet about the progress of their investigation, as indictments related to the case were sporadically being unsealed.

In July, FOX News first reported that a federal grand jury in Minneapolis had indicted three Somali-American men in the case. Two have since pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorists, and one has admitted that he lied to investigators.

More recently, another man was indicted for lying to FBI agents, but he has pleaded not guilty. And last week, one more Minnesota man was indicted on charges of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists. He is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday.

Somalia has had no stable government since 1991, when dictator Siad Barre was ousted from power. A newer secular government has had trouble keeping Muslim militants at bay, and in 2006 fighting with al-Shabaab intensified after Western-backed Ethiopian forces invaded Somalia.

The U.S. government labeled al-Shabaab a terrorist organization last year. U.S. officials worry that if al-Shabaab prevails in Somalia, the war-torn country could turn into a haven for Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

In October 2008, 27-year-old college student Shirwa Ahmed of Minneapolis became "the first known American suicide bomber" when he blew himself up in Somalia, killing dozens, according to the FBI.

Since then at least four more men from Minneapolis have been killed in Somalia, according to their families.

In response to Monday’s announcement, the FBI agent in charge of the Minneapolis field office noted that the actions of a few should not be seen as representative of the entire Somali community.

“I emphasize the sole focus of our efforts in this matter has been the criminal conduct of a small number of mainly Somali-American individuals and not the broader Somali-American community itself,” FBI Special Agent in Charge Ralph Boelter said in a statement. “[The Somali community] has consistently expressed deep concern about this pattern of recruitment activity in support of al-Shabaab.”

Federal authorities are expected to announce charges against eight more people today in a long-running investigation into how perhaps dozens of young men from the Minneapolis area were recruited to join an Al Qaeda-linked group in Somalia.

It will be the most significant and public move to date in the case. Although indictments against six people had already been unsealed, the question of who helped persuade more the men to train and fight with the group has remained largely unanswered.

Among the charges being announced today: solicitation to commit a crime of violence.

The charges will be announced at a joint FBI-U.S. Attorney's Office press conference in Minneapolis on Monday afternoon, a source said.

According to court documents, at least six people -- Zakaria Maruf, Mohamed Abdullahi Hassan, Mustafa Ali Salat, Ahmed Ali Omar and Khalid Mohamud Abshir -- have been indicted on several counts, including conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, and providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization.

Omar and Abshir are also charged with solicitation to commit a crime of violence, charges not yet seen in the FBI's case.

Many of those charged have already been arrested, but some individuals are currently overseas, the source said. The source did not elaborate.

Beginning in late 2007 and continuing through last year, more than 20 young men left their homes in the Minneapolis area to join al-Shabaab, which is fighting to establish a Muslim state in Somalia and recently pledged its allegiance to Usama bin Laden.

U.S. officials worry that if al-Shabaab prevails, Somalia could turn into a haven for Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

After families in Minneapolis began to report their sons missing, the FBI launched a wide-ranging investigation.

By March federal authorities were aware that several Minnesota men who traveled to Somalia had returned to the United States, but they were not arrested immediately so that federal authorities could continue their investigation, a law enforcement source said.

One of the Minneapolis area's most popular mosques, the Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic Center in St. Paul, has become a point of interest for investigators and a subject of speculation among those watching the case.

Many of the men recruited to join al-Shabaab attended the Abubakar mosque, and some of the latest individuals to be charged have ties to the mosque, a source said.

"But don't look for that to be at the center of the announcement," the source said. The source said no mosque officials will be part of Monday's announcement.

A call to the mosque was answered by a machine, and efforts to reach the mosque's director were not successful.

In March, the mosque posted a statement online saying any suggestions it played a role in recruitment of young men to Somalia were untrue and "unfair."

"Abubakar Center didn't recruit, finance, or otherwise facilitate in any way, shape, or form the travel of those youth," the statement said.

Authorities have so far remained mostly quiet about the progress of their investigation, as indictments related to the case were sporadically being unsealed.

In July, FOX News first reported that a federal grand jury in Minneapolis had indicted three Somali-American men in the case. Two have since pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorists, and one has admitted that he lied to investigators.

More recently, another man was indicted for lying to FBI agents, but he has pleaded not guilty.

Two weeks ago, a Somali man was arrested in the Netherlands for allegedly financing terrorist activities. U.S. authorities are working with Dutch authorities to extradite him to the United States, a source said.

Last week one more Minnesota man was indicted on charges of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists. He is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday.

Somalia has had no stable government since 1991, when dictator Siad Barre was ousted from power. A newer secular government has had trouble keeping Muslim militants at bay, and in 2006 fighting with al-Shabaab intensified after Western-backed Ethiopian forces invaded Somalia.

The U.S. government labeled al-Shabaab a terrorist organization last year.

In October 2008, 27-year-old college student Shirwa Ahmed of Minneapolis became "the first known American suicide bomber" when he blew himself up in Somalia, killing dozens, according to the FBI. Since then at least four more men from Minneapolis have been killed in Somalia, according to their families.

The big questions about the Ft. Hood massacre: What did the FBI and others know about Maj. Nidal Hasan, when did they know it, and why didn't they do more?

Investigative officials held a nearly hour-long briefing with reporters on Monday night, trying to answer those very questions. Here is one of the most in-depth and unabridged accounts published to date of the questions asked and answers given at that briefing...

HOW AND WHEN DID AUTHORITIES FIRST LEARN ABOUT HASAN?

The officials said that "we learned of Maj. Hasan last year" as "a result of our investigation" into another individual. (Sources have identified that individual to FOX News as radical cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki, an American citizen with ties to Al-Qaeda who is now believed to be in Yemen.) According to the officials, starting in December last year and going into early this year, Hasan communicated 10 to 20 times with the individual, who one official said "has been espousing some radical views and coming very close to advocating violence." An official said of the communications: "We learned of them when they occurred."

(Sources have since told FOX News that the communications were via email and did not elicit much of a response, if any, from Awlaki.)

HOW WOULD YOU CHARACTERIZE HASAN'S COMMUNICATIONS?

"The general tenor of the communications, at least in my mind, were fairly benign and did comport with a research project he was doing that was sanctioned by Walter Reed [Army Medical Center]," one official said. (Hasan was researching Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for his Master's degree during the time he sent communications to Awlaki.) Another official said the communications appeared "consistent entirely with what he was doing as a licensed psychiatrist in dealing with soldiers [or] what he's doing for his Master's work." As for the specific content of the communications, one official would only say that it included "social" topics and "religious guidance."

WHAT DID AUTHORITIES DO AFTER DISCOVERING THE COMMUNICATIONS?

"We did an assessment as to those communications and identified Maj. Hasan," one official said. "And then working through the Joint Terrorism Task Forces, which [Department of Defense] of course is part of, learned who he was and what his background was, where he was assigned, and then did what we would consider a logical [assessment]." One official said the assessment was "of a limited duration," and it included reaching out to the military about Hasan's work. One official said the JTTF looked at: "Who is this person? What are they working on? Any issues with them? Disciplinary matters? All those things just part of due diligence." Hasan's "performance reports were reviewed" but "there was nothing that raised ... a red flag," according to one official. The official said he didn't know whether any of Hasan's colleagues at Walter Reed had filed any reports about Hasan.

When asked whether Hasan himself was ever contacted by the FBI, the officials wouldn't comment, one insisting, "I won't address that."

In the end, one official said, "There was no indication that Maj. Hasan was planning an attack ... at all ... or that he was directed to do anything."

HOW MUCH WAS THE DEFENSE DEPARTMENT INVOLVED IN THE ASSESSMENT OF HASAN?

"The Department of Defense is part of the JTTF, so it's a joint [assessment]," one official said. "As part of that assessment there was a lot of work done in terms of his military record, his background, who he was, where he'd come from, you know all those type things." One official insisted, "these again were JTTF [reviews] ... so the decisions were made by JTTF with input from all of the components of that," which would include state and local officials, FBI officials, and Defense Department officials.

One official said the information about Hasan "was handled in at least two" of the 168 JTTFs across the country. That included "DoD representatives who collaboratively did a scrub of: What does this mean? Is there a threat? Is there a basis for opening an investigation?," the official said.

A FORMAL INVESTIGATION WAS NEVER OPENED. WHY NOT?

"What we had was some contact and some communications that wasn't enough to get us into even the preliminary investigation box," one official said. "We didn't have enough for a preliminary investigation."

"We cannot predicate an investigation of a U.S. person ... solely on First Amendment activity," the official said. "So if all you have is First Amendment activity -- so it's protected speech, there's nothing that suggests advocacy of violence, nothing that suggests incitement to violence, nothing about the connection between him and the [individual overseas FBI was investigating] ... then what do you have? In order to open a preliminary investigation we need information or allegations that person is or may be, in this context, a national security threat. And that can't be based solely on protected First Amendment activity."

The official suggested that Hasan's case involved "a communication that doesn't involve advocacy to violence, doesn't involve a threat to violence, and it's just a contact to another person and there's nothing about that contact in and of itself [to make it illegal]."

The officials repeated that point throughout Monday night's briefing.

"In order to open a formal investigation, as those of you who have been to the Attorney General guidelines tutorials know, there is certain predication that has to be met. So we have to have certain information in our possession before we can simply open an investigation. So you could presume that if an investigation wasn't opened, perhaps what we knew didn't rise to that level," one official said.

And then the official said this later: "Recognize that we didn't have an investigation open, and to the extent there were communications that were overtly threatening, that would certainly qualify as predication for an investigation. So draw the logical conclusion from that in terms of what the content of the communications were."

DID WORRIES OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS PLAY A ROLE IN THE LACK OF FURTHER INVESTIGATION INTO HASAN?

At the briefing, one reported asked: "Are you prepared to emphatically bat down the suggestion ... that Mr. Hasan was the recipient of very light treatment because of his religious background?"

One official answer this way: "I don't have any evidence of that, that I'm aware of. I don't know the state of play with interviewes at Walter Reed with his supervisors and co-workers, but I had not heard that allegation [and] I don't have any evidence to back it up."

WHO ELSE WAS KEPT IN THE LOOP ABOUT HASAN?

When asked whether people at Walter Reed or Ft. Hood had been notified about potentially worrisome information concerning Hasan, one official said, "I don't know the specifics of the lines of communication ... I can't answer you specifically, I just don't know."

Asked whether senior officials -- inside and outside of the FBI and JTTF -- had been briefed about Hasan, one official said, "That's part of what our teams are assessing right now ... to look at best practices. I don't have the definitive answer to that right now."

One official said that, generally, "There's a lot of intelligence collection that goes on every day, and if there's a reason that an individual causes more concern, then obviously the higher that gets briefed and gets acted on."

The official continued, "If somebody is in touch with a person that we have an investigative-collection interest in, then if it's a benign conversation ... that's going to be handled in the normal course of business." Asked whether that means the information about the person would not be sent above an FBI field office, the official said, "Typically."

Would the Army usually obtain this type of information from someone on the JTTF? "It has to rise to the level of concern," one official said. "Not necessarily."

DID OFFICIALS KNOW ABOUT TWO KEY MOMENTS -- AND IF NOT, HOW'D THEY MISS THEM?

In August, Hasan bought a pistol at "Guns Galore" in Killeen, Texas. But one official said the FBI didn't know about that at the time. "I'm not aware that we did," the official said.
Officials said that -- while the gun purchase went through an FBI background check, or "Brady gun check" -- there is no legal way to alert others to the purchase. "That's not permissible under the law," one official said.

"When we do a Brady gun check and clear someone to purchase, we're only checking to see if there's an exclusion, if there's some reason why the person is not permitted to purchase a weapon," another official said. "There's a very specific list of exclusions. Simply that someone has come onto the FBI's radar screen at some point is not an exclusion. ... [The FBI employee doing the Brady gun check] can't pick up the phone and call the other side of the FBI and say, 'Oh, by the way, this person who maybe appeared somewhere in your holdings just bought a gun.'"

The officials were pressed on that issue. "Someone that comes to your attentionm, the JTTF, purchases a weapon. Is that not the kind of thing that people that are doing the intelligence assessment are not able to do?" a reporter asked.

An official responded: "Are you asking for an opinion, or what the law is? ... Obviously from an investigator's standpoint, there's all kinds of information like that that we'd like to know."

Separately, officials said that, despite media reports to the contrary, they did not know about a posting online in May that compared suicide bombers to soldiers who throw themselves on grenades. The message was posted by someone named "Nidal Hasan."

But, one official said, "We didn't know about that at the time."

Asked to explain how authorities could miss a posting like that, one official said, "There are a million blogs all throughout the Internet, and the notion that the FBI is omniscient in terms of every blog posting is just wrong."

The official continued: "There seems to be a theory in the press that we knew everything. Recognize that what we've been trying to tell you is that we had heard of Hasan by virtue of connections to an unconnected investigation. We didn't have an investigation open, and we don't just monitor across the board every blog posting that might go up. So draw from that ... whether we would have knowledge of just a random blog posting by someone who we don't have an investigation up on."

(Pictured: Salah Osman Ahmed, a Minneapolis man who joined an Al Qaeda-linked group in Somalia before returning to the United States in April 2008)

"It's certainly something that quite plainly is definitely on the radar," said one official with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which oversees border security operations. "We're alert to that and doing our part to make sure that we address that threat."

CBP's part includes keeping Border Patrol agents, customs officers and other immigration officials informed of emerging concerns and trends. In February CBP sent an alert -- or "issue paper" -- about Somalia and the Al Qaeda-linked group, known as al-Shabaab, to offices across the country.

"It is feared that U.S. citizens and residents are being called to action in Somalia, as well as to support the illegal migration of Somalis to the United States," said one sentence in the alert, as relayed to FOX News.

Of all the law enforcement agencies, CBP has a particular interest in the issue.

"We are the first line of defense," said CBP spokesman Lloyd Easterling, referring to the more than 22,000 officers at border crossings, airports and marine terminals, and the more than 17,000 Border Patrol agents between those ports of entry. "Many times, our officers are the first to make contact with people arriving into the United States, which allows us a unique opportunity to address these threats immediately."

For the past year, the FBI has been investigating how more than 20 young Americans -- most of them of Somali descent -- were recruited to join al-Shabaab, which is fighting to establish a Muslim state in Somalia and recently pledged its allegiance to Usama bin Laden.

Last month FBI Director Robert Mueller became the first U.S. official to acknowledge that al-Shabaab "would like to undertake operations outside of Somalia." But, he said, it has yet to do so.

In congressional hearings and public briefings over the past several months, discussions about al-Shabaab's possible presence in the United States have focused on how American recruits can "travel rather freely" with their U.S. passports, as one counterterrorism official put it in March.

"We are concerned that if a few Somali American youth could be motivated to engage in such activities overseas, fellow travelers could return to the U.S. and engage in terrorist activities here," Andrew Liepman, the deputy director for intelligence at the National Counterterrorism Center, told lawmakers at a Senate hearing on al-Shabaab.

Officials and lawmakers have never publicly raised the possibility of al-Shabaab sending recruits -- of any nationality -- to enter the United States illegally. The issue, though, has come up in internal conversations, immigration and other law enforcement officials said.

The discussions have not been limited to CBP. Officials within the FBI, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, and the Intelligence and Analysis Office of the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees CBP and ICE, have discussed the possibility that al-Shabaab members could be smuggled into the United States to launch attacks, DHS and FBI officials said.

"[We] and the rest of the U.S. government certainly recognize it as a threat," said an official with ICE, which investigates suspected cases of illegal entry into the United States.

ICE officials wouldn't say whether their agency, like CBP, has issued alerts about Somalia and al-Shabaab, but one ICE official insisted, "I can assure you that our agents are well aware of what nationalities we're concerned about and could be terrorist threats."

For now, the intelligence community believes the threat of al-Shabaab launching attacks inside the United States is low.

There is "no hard information or evidence that has been effectively pursued," Mueller said last month. And attempts to send a foreign national to the United States to launch attacks would likely fail, one source said.

"The likelihood of them being successful, especially with all the attention on them now, is not high," the source said.

In addition, al-Shabaab would likely think twice before directly attacking the United States.

"It's a riskier move on their part, which would create a U.S. response in the Horn of Africa," the source said.

But officials do worry all that could change -- especially if Al Qaeda operatives working with al-Shabaab in Somalia pressure the group to look outside East Africa.

"It is those Al Qaeda elements that we fear will push al-Shabaab members to change their focus," Michael Leiter, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, told lawmakers last month.

An ICE official offered a similar assessment, saying authorities are watching for any shifts in al-Shabaab's aims.

"We're obviously concerned about what happens in Somalia, some of the radicalization that is occurring there," the official said. "Being as unstable as [Somalia] is, we're greatly concerned about Somalis being smuggled into the U.S."

Officials didn't say how al-Shabaab members might be smuggled into the United States, but they are taking note of how Somalis -- with no ill intentions -- have already managed to enter the country illegally.

The "vast majority have been smuggled across" the southern U.S. border and "are likely walked across by guides," orchestrated by alien smuggling operations throughout South and Central America, according to an ICE official.

Mexico, in particular, has become a pipeline of sorts for illegal immigration between Somalia and the United States.

"The alien smuggling organization understands [Somalis'] desperation and seeks to profit from illegal migrants," CBP's alert in February said, as relayed to FOX News.

In some cases, Somalis have used fraudulent documents, including fake passports, to enter the country through a sanctioned border crossing, but those instances are rare, according to the official.

Asked whether Mexican drug cartels could be involved in smuggling Somalis, the official said there is "at least the thought out there that some of the cartels" could transport Somalis, including associates of al-Shabaab. But, another ICE official said, networks that "could be used to move people who want to do us harm" are "not ideologically based," they're profit-based.

As CBP's alert in February indicated, many Somalis entering the United States illegally are also likely getting help from U.S. citizens and residents.

People inside the United States can contribute funds, provide hideouts and homes, purchase bus or plane tickets, or support the smuggling of Somalis in other ways, a CBP official said.

"It depends largely on the job they're doing and the risks they want to take," the official said.

Over all, ICE officials said, they are not seeing "huge numbers" of Somalis being smuggled into the United States.

What's more, officials and experts on Somalia agree that the vast majority -- if not all -- of Somalis who have entered the country illegally have no intention of harming the United States.

"Most Somalis are just looking for a better life, and we have to be careful not to consider every Somali to be a threat," said Bruno Schiemsky, a Kenya-based consultant specializing in extremist movements in Eastern Africa.

The alert issued by CBP, which said most Somalis encountered by CBP are men between 18 and 29 years old, reflected that thought.

"The continued deterioration of living conditions in Somalia is expected to sustain the illegal migration of Somalis to the United States," the alert said, as relayed to FOX News. "The bleak future of Somalia has caused and will continue to cause refugees to seek a more sustainable existence, which includes risking thousands of dollars and their lives to be smuggled to the United States."

Smuggling, though, is not the only possible option for associates of al-Shabaab to get into the country. Specifically, Americans who are "being called to action in Somalia," as CBP's alert put it, can try to enter the United States legally.

And while Easterling said CBP "regularly refuses entry to people who may pose a threat to the security of our country," sometimes CBP allows even associates of al-Shabaab to enter.

One case in particular could explain why.

Salah Osman Ahmed (pictured), in his mid-20s, was one of the first Americans to be radicalized inside the United States and persuaded to train with al-Shabaab in Somalia.

In December 2007, he flew from Minneapolis to the Netherlands, with a final destination of Somalia. He wanted to fight against Ethiopian troops backing the more secular, transitional government there, according to court documents.

Four months later, in April 2008, he returned to the United States, arriving at an airport in New York. After giving CBP officers the appropriate documents, Ahmed acknowledged to a CBP officer that he had traveled to Somalia.

Ahmed was then detained and questioned by CBP officers, according to his lawyer, Jim Ostgard, and a source with knowledge of the case. Officers also searched "his person" and looked through Ahmed's luggage, Ostgard said.

Ahmed was not on any terrorism watchlist, but his travel to Somalia raised the CBP officers' concern, the source said, suggesting that CBP was already well aware of the possible implications of traveling to Somalia.

Ahmed was eventually released and allowed to board a flight to Minneapolis. A "very brief written report" of Ahmed's "encounter" at the airport was sent to the FBI, according to Ostgard.

A CBP official said that, even in cases when a person is on a terrorism watchlist, CBP would notify the appropriate agencies and only detain the person if needed. Any further investigation would be conducted by the appropriate agency, the official said.

The FBI did follow up in Ahmed's case. Three months after he returned to the United States, Ahmed was interviewed by FBI agents about his time in Somalia and others who traveled there, according to court documents.

In December 2008, FBI agents returned for a second interview, and two months later a grand jury in Minneapolis indicted him on charges of providing material support to terrorists. He wasn't arrested until July, shortly before his case became public. He has since reached a plea agreement with the government.

It's unclear why Ahmed was not arrested immediately, but several Minnesota men who traveled to Somalia had returned to the United States by the time of Ahmed's arrest. They were not arrested immediately so that federal authorities could continue their investigation, a law enforcement source said.

Three other Somali-Americans have since been indicted in connection with the FBI investigation. Two men have pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorists, and another was recently indicted for lying to FBI agents. He has pleaded not guilty.

Asked why Ahmed decided to return to the United States, Ostgard declined to comment.

On Oct. 6, about 10 miles north of Las Vegas, a Nevada Highway Patrol officer pulled over a rental car that was speeding, according to court records and one of the sources. The gray Chevrolet was occupied by five men of Somali descent, including Cabdulaahi Faarax of Minneapolis and Abdow M. Abdow of Chanhassen, Minn., according to the court records and sources.

The five men offered conflicting accounts of their travel. All five told the officer they were on their way to San Diego to attend a friend’s wedding, but they “gave inconsistent explanations regarding where they were staying in San Diego, how the occupants knew one another, and who was getting married at the wedding in San Diego,” according to court documents.

When asked for their dates of birth, they all gave “January 1” as their birthday, but each offered a different year of birth. Faarax said he was born Jan. 1, 1977, making him 32 years old, one source said.

When the officer ran Faarax’s information through a law enforcement database, it came back as “a hit on the terrorist watchlist,” a law enforcement source said.

It’s unclear why Faarax’s name would be on the terrorist watchlist. But unless there’s a warrant for the person’s arrest or a “red notice” from the global police force Interpol, there is no reason or ability to detain someone on the list, sources said.

“There are people on the list that are just being monitored,” one law enforcement source said.

“If there’s not a crime being committed, there’s no reason to hold anybody,” another source said. “Once they’re on the list, it’s kind of just being supervised, like being on parole. You just interview them, and if they didn’t do anything wrong, you cut them loose.”

The officer who stopped the car last week would not have known what prompted Faarax’s name to be added to the terrorist watchlist, only that Faarax was on the list, one source said.

However, sources confirm that occupants of the car are related to the long-running FBI investigation of young men from the Minneapolis area and elsewhere who were recruited to train and possibly fight alongside an Al Qaeda-linked group in Somalia, known as al-Shabaab.

One source said Faarax had certain associations with al-Shabaab, but how deep those associations run is unclear.

For example, voicing support online for al-Shabaab, which was labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S. government last year, could warrant placement on the terrorist watchlist, one source said.

Training with al-Shabaab in Somalia could also warrant placement on the terrorist watchlist. None of the sources would say whether Faarax had trained with al-Shabaab or traveled to Somalia recently.

Still, the sources said, Faarax would have been detained last week by the Nevada Highway Patrol officer if Faarax had been deemed an “immediate threat.”

One law enforcement source called all of this “an unexpected twist” in the FBI's investigation.

An FBI spokesman in Minneapolis, E.K. Wilson, declined to comment for this article. Asked whether authorities know the current whereabouts of Faarax or any of the other passengers from the vehicle, aside from Abdow, Wilson said he couldn’t answer.

An FBI spokesman in Washington also declined to comment for this article.

However, two days after their vehicle was pulled over outside Las Vegas, two of the passengers appeared at the U.S.-Mexico border crossing in San Ysidro, Calif.

According to court documents, they had been dropped off by a taxicab, and they told a customs official at the border crossing “that they would be flying from Tijuana airport to Mexico City airport, and [they] displayed airline tickets to the Officer.”

In several cases over the past decade, Mexico has been a waypoint for travel between the United States and Somalia.

Meanwhile, the driver of the rented vehicle, 26-year-old Abdow M. Abdow, is the only one of the five Somali men to be facing charges so far.

He has been charged in a criminal complaint with lying to the FBI.

The officer who stopped Abdow’s vehicle found $4,000 in the car and eventually learned that Abdow’s wife had filed a missing persons report in Minneapolis. The officer contacted the FBI, which interviewed Abdow on Oct. 8.

After giving conflicting accounts about his travel a few days before, Abdow told the FBI agents interviewing him, “I am talking too much,” according to court documents.

Asked who paid for the rental car, he told the FBI he didn’t know, that he had done nothing wrong, and that “whatever those guys are into I’m not,” according to court documents.

FBI agents later determined Abdow rented the car from Avis Rental Car Company and paid for it with his own Visa debit card.

“He was obviously trying to protect somebody or some people,” one source said.

Abdow made his initial appearance in federal court on Tuesday. A judge in the case ruled that Abdow could be released to a halfway house under certain conditions.

A grand jury in Minneapolis is still investigating how the Somali men from Minnesota were recruited to fight in Somalia. Three men have already pleaded guilty to terror-related charges, including providing material support to terrorists.

The indictments said the men traveled to Somalia "so that they could fight jihad" there.

Somalia has had no stable government since 1991, when dictator Siad Barre was ousted from power. A newer secular government has had trouble keeping Muslim militants at bay, and in 2006 fighting with al-Shabaab intensified after Western-backed Ethiopian forces invaded Somalia. U.S. officials say if al-Shabaab prevails, Somalia could turn into a haven for Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

In October 2008, 27-year-old college student Shirwa Ahmed of Minneapolis became "the first known American suicide bomber" when he blew himself up in Somalia, killing dozens, according to the FBI.

Since then at least four more men from Minneapolis have been killed in Somalia, according to their families.

"It's going to be difficult for us to make the Jan. 22 deadline," Holder told a group of reporters on Tuesday. "But I do think that it was the right thing to set that deadline. ... [It] has a way of focusing people's efforts, their attention, and giving people a goal."

Two days after taking office, President Obama signed an executive order calling for "the detention facilities at Guantánamo ... [to] be closed as soon as practicable, and no later than 1 year from the date of this order." As of two months ago, the White House was publicly sticking to its promise, despite concerns being expressed privately among administration officials.

That has changed, as top administration officials say publicly they will likely miss the deadline -- and try to recast the importance of a deadline.

"We're not focused on whether or not the deadline will or won't be met on a particular day," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said last week. "We're focused on ensuring that the facility is closed, and doing all that has to be done between now and the 22nd of January to make the most progress that we can that's possible."

Officials haven't gone into many specifics about what's slowed them down, but Holder said Tuesday one issue has been identifying nations willing to take some detainees.

"There are a number of factors that make the planned closing date of Jan. 22 difficult," said Holder, who is leading the review of detainees' cases.

He also expressed concerns that last week's move by lawmakers opposing the transfer of any detainees to the United States could further complicate efforts to close Guantanamo Bay.

Holder suggested he may have to go to Capitol Hill to "make them understand that we have the capacity" to safely detain terror suspects on American soil.

As for why he supports the decision to set a deadline in the first place, Holder alluded to the ways of Washington.

"When you try to move bureaucraries, I think that setting specific dates makes sense," he said. "And i think it was the wise thing to do here, and led to the progress that we have made."

Of the 241 detainees who were detained at Guantanamo Bay when President Obama took office, 223 are still there.

Of the 18 no longer there, 16 were transferred to other countries, one committed suicide, and one was brought to New York to face criminal charges related to the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa.

But, Holder said, the task force reviewing detainee cases has now "gone through all of the files."

Roughly 90 have been approved for transfer to other countries, and about 40 have been referred for prosecution, either in military commissions or U.S. federal courts, a source with knowledge of the review said.

"A number of files are being reviewed by prosecutors from four or five U.S. Attorneys' offices to see whether or not the cases are suitable for prosecution in federal courts," Holder said. That process should be done by mid-November, he said.

The nearly 100 other detainees are undergoing a "second-stage review" to determine whether they should be transferred, prosecuted by the United States, or face some other fate, the source said. That "second-stage review" should also be completed by mid-November, according to the source.

In any event, Holder said, "Guantanamo will be closed, and I think that that is an appropriate thing to do, given the fact that it has served and I think continues to serve as a recruiting for those who intend to do this nation hard, and has served as a wedge between us and those nations that are our allies."

And, he said, he's not quite ready to give up altogether on the Jan. 22 deadline.

It may be "difficult" to meet, but that "doesn't mean we're not going to try to do it," he said.

That producer would be me, Mike Levine, and I was one of 45 people told over the weekend to report for jury duty Monday morning at U.S. District Court in Washington.

The court had said in the initial documents it mailed, "We hope you will find jury service interesting and rewarding!"

Interesting, indeed.

We all gathered in the jurors' lounge shortly after 8 a.m. To start things off, court officials informed the group that "you’ve all" seen someone else delivering a verdict on TV or film, but "in the next few days YOU may be delivering a verdict." So, to educate us all about that, they showed a film.

"It’s award-winning. We got an Oscar for this one," a woman from the Jury Office joked before letting it roll.

The slightly grainy film was apparently from the '80s, featuring an anchorwoman in a bright-blue jacket with oversized shoulder pads, a large pin stuck to her lapel, and Mary Lou Retton hair.

"The right to a trial by jury is guaranteed by our Constitution," the film's anchor said. "Without people like you, these Constitutional requirements could not be met."

The anchor explained several key terms that jurors would likely come across during a trial, including "evidence," "cross-examination," "opening statements," "bench conferences" and "voir dire" (jury selection).

Those explanations were interspersed with "testimonials" from a variety of characters: There was an Asian doctor; a Hispanic maintenance worker; an overweight, white farmer, who leaned against a wooden fence as three cows chewed behind him; and an old woman with large glasses, who sat in a reading chair, beside a small boy’s picture on the bookcase.

The film must have been produced "when the idea of multiculturalism was first being born," a potential juror sitting next to me noted.

In the film, the old woman said she was "nervous" about the big words she may hear during jury service.

"I kept thinking, 'I'm a librarian – well, a retired librarian – not a lawyer,'" the old woman said.

The anchor then tried to allay any potential juror's fears: "All you need to bring to the courtroom is your common sense." (The anchor has since left the film and TV industry. She now heads a "strategic communications firm" with offices in Washington and New York.)

The film lasted about 20 minutes.

About a half-hour later, the group of 45 potential jurors marched to Courtroom 9, where we would face U.S. District Judge Richard Roberts and the attorneys in the case. We were 25 females, and 20 males.

Once seated on the benches inside, Roberts told us we had been summoned to potentially decide the fate of Mr. Wayne Pannell.

Earlier this year the government wanted Pannell to testify for them in a previous case, and the Assistant U.S. Attorney in Washington, Deborah Sines, had met with Pannell. But, according to prosecutors, Pannell "did not wish to appear in court and testify," so in February he paid a long-time friend to make threatening calls to Sines, hoping that the trial would "thereby be postponed and somehow dismissed."

On Feb. 5, Pannell’s friend called Sines and left a message saying, "Let me tell you something. We will kidnap your son today, and if you think about going to mother f-----n’ trial, we will kill you." A day later, according to prosecutors, Pannell’s friend left a second message, saying, "We are watching ... we are gonna get [you]."

Pannell was arrested in March, indicted on seven counts, including Solicitation to Commit a Crime of Violence, Threatening to Kidnap a Family Member of a Federal Law Enforcement Officer, Threatening to Murder a Federal Law Enforcement Officer, and Obstruction of Justice.

Roberts, though, only gave us a brief outline of the case. He then asked the group 26 questions, mostly about people we know or things we do that could impact our ability to be impartial jurors. I fessed up to two things: My father's an attorney, and my brother used to work for a law enforcement agency.

Roberts asked me if those facts would make it difficult for me to be impartial. To both, I said, "It would not."

One question, though, stumped me at first: In the past 10 years had I – or someone close to me – been witness to a crime?

Would driving over the speed limit count? What about jaywalking?

A woman asked the judge, "What do you mean by 'crime'?" The judge told us to err on the side of caution and interpret the term broadly. I determined, then, that, "Yes," in fact I had been witness to a crime in the past 10 years.

A different question stumped the older woman sitting next to me. Roberts asked each of us if there were any "urgent" matters or scheduling conflicts that would prevent us from serving up to four days to hear all the evidence, plus the time it would take to deliberate?

The woman next to me leaned over and asked whether that would include her frequent use of the restroom.

"I’d clear out my bladder beforehand, but I can only last three hours. Then I gotta go," She said. "That’s it."

I told her I didn't think that would be a problem.

At about 11:20 a.m., a majority of us were sent back to the jurors' lounge, where we waited while the lawyers and judge began a closer inspection of those left behind. For an hour during lunch-time we were allowed to roam the building, but we found ourselves back in the lounge at 1:25 p.m.

An hour later, I had an epiphany: The jurors' lounge looks a lot like the gate area of an airport, complete with the rows of stained seats and TVs suspended from large columns. In fact, like passengers waiting to board a plane, some potential jurors were reading or pecking on their laptops, while others were asleep, having contorted themselves into inexplicable states of comfort. One woman was using her laptop as a pillow.

Another hour passed.

At 3:26 p.m., I was called for follow-up questioning. This was my chance to explain why I believed I had witnessed a crime sometime in the past 10 years.

As I stood before Judge Roberts back in his courtroom, I reminded him that he told us to define the word "crime" broadly. So I noted that 10 years ago I was in college, where – technically speaking – crimes were occurring all around me. Under-age drinking. Drug use. Possession of a fake ID. None was prosecuted, but they were technically crimes nonetheless.

Roberts smiled.

"Thank you for your broad interpretation," he said.

My follow-up questioning lasted a matter of seconds, and I was directed back to the lounge, where about 30 of us waited for the next hour and a half.

Shortly after 5 p.m., everyone in the jurors' lounge was summoned to Roberts’ courtroom. Once there, we had to wait again while prosecutors and defense lawyers wrangled over the final juror list.

As minutes passed, some potential jurors in the back row began discussing the odds of each of them being selected. The woman who works on terrorism issues for a federal agency: No way. The guy who made a point of telling the judge – repeatedly – that he has lots of lawyers in his family: Family ties wouldn’t rule him out. As for me: I figured anything was possible.

After 18 minutes, a final roster had been reached. A court official ticked off the 14 jurors who would sit in the jury box.

I was not one of them.

What didn’t I have that the others did – or what DID I have that the others did not? I emailed Pannell’s attorney, public defender Tony Miles, and asked him to shed some light on my dismissal. I have yet to hear back from him.

Meanwhile, as I look back on the whole day, I can't help but think about something that anchorwoman in the '80s film told us at the start of the day: "If you’re excused, don't take it personally."

Abu Mansour al-Amriki — or Omar Hammami as he was known — appears in a video posted online Tuesday by the group al-Shabaab, which has ties to Al Qaeda and was labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S. government last year. In the new video, al-Shabaab fighters pledge their allegiance to Usama bin Laden.

"I ask Allah to grant victory to the [Muslim fighters] in every land and under every sky," says one fighter in the video, excerpts of which were provided to Fox News by the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). "We ask Allah that the Islamic Nation be liberated from invaders by the next [end of Ramadan] and [an Islamic state] be established by then."

During the 50-minute video, titled "We Are At Your Command, Usama," al-Amriki pops up in scenes of apparent military training. In one scene, he stands in the background – a black, bulging vest strapped to his chest – while at least four people whose faces are hidden by cloth point rifles forward.

Al-Amriki has been in Somalia for several years, but he first became a public figure in October 2007, when Al-Jazeera TV featured him in a report on the "common goal" of Al Qaeda and hard-line militants in Somalia. He kept his face hidden.

He showed his face for the first time in April, when a video posted online featured him purportedly leading a group of al-Shabaab militants in an ambush of "the enemy."

Speaking about one man killed in the fight, he said, "We need more like him, so if you can encourage more of your children and more of your neighbors, anyone around, to send people like him to this jihad, it would be a great asset for us."

His efforts in Somalia spurred the Federal Bureau of Investigation to launch an investigation several years ago. The case was ultimately brought before a grand jury in Mobile, Ala., where he has been indicted on charges of providing material support to terrorists, a source said. It’s unclear when that indictment was filed.

As FOX News first reported three weeks ago, al-Amriki was born Omar Hammami in May 1984, and he grew up outside Mobile, Ala., in the quiet city of Daphne.

He was raised Baptist like his mother, but his Syrian-born father is Muslim, and "some time in high school" Hammami converted to Islam, a woman who went to high school with Hammami told FOX News.

The woman, Shellie Brooks, said Hammami would take time out from classes throughout the day to pray. At the same time, he would frequent the Islamic Society of Mobile, one of the most popular mosques in the Mobile area.

The school's principal, Don Blanchard, described Hammami as "a good kid," and Brooks called him a "very intellectual guy" who was "really well liked" and "had tons of friends."

But, Brooks said, "things changed a bit when he converted because his beliefs changed."

He left high school a year early, forgoing a fourth year at Daphne High School to enroll as a 17-year-old at the University of South Alabama in Mobile.

He chose computer science as his major, but he dropped out within two years.

According to a source within Mobile's Muslim community who described hismelf as an "acquaintance" of Hammami, the college drop-out then went to Toronto, where he married a Somali woman he had met through a mutual friend. The couple had a child together, the source said.

After living in Toronto "for a while," some "angry" individuals there "brainwashed" him and "encouraged him to fight in Somalia," according to the source.

Hammami then left his wife and child for Somalia, the source said.

Another source in the Mobile area said Hammami has not spoken to his family – including his mother, father, sister and ex-wife – in at least four years.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police declined to comment, and an FBI spokeswoman said he could not confirm the sources' accounts.

Hammami – or al-Amriki – is a small part of the new video posted online by al-Shabaab. The video centers around a ceremony in the Kismaayo district of southern Somalia, during which some Somalis vow obedience to bin Laden by declaring, "We are at your command, oh Usama," according to MEMRI.

U.S. officials have become increasingly concerned that, if al-Shabaab prevails in Somalia, the country could turn into a haven for Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Somalia has had no stable government since 1991, when dictator Siad Barre was ousted from power. A newer secular government has had trouble keeping Muslim militants at bay, and in 2006 fighting with al-Shabaab intensified after Western-backed Ethiopian forces invaded Somalia.

The United States and other countries have recently been assisting Somalia's government in the fight against al-Shabaab. Meanwhile, federal law enforcement have been keeping a close on al-Shabaab's moves overseas.

In addition to Hammami's case, for much of the past year the FBI has been looking into how dozens of young men from the Minneapolis area and elsewhere were recruited to train and possibly fight alongside al-Shabaab in Somalia.

In October 2008, 27-year-old college student Shirwa Ahmed of Minneapolis became "the first known American suicide bomber" when he blew himself up in Somalia, killing dozens, according to the FBI.

Since then at least four more men from Minneapolis have been killed in Somalia, according to their families.

Earlier this year a grand jury in Minneapolis indicted at least three men. They have already pleaded guilty to terror-related charges, including providing material support to terrorists.

The indictments said the men traveled to Somalia "so that they could fight jihad" there.

The Justice Department initiated removal proceedings against John Kalymon of Troy, Mich., based on his participation in violent acts of persecution while serving as an armed member of the Nazi-sponsored Ukrainian police during World War II, a Justice Department press release said.

Specifically, the Justice Department filed charging documents in U.S. Immigration Court in Detroit, saying that Kalymon “personally shot Jews while serving” as a member of the Ukrainian police from at least May 1942 to March 1944, according to the press release. At least one of those shot died.

In addition, the Justice Department said, Kalymon helped "forcibly deport" Jews to be murdered in gas chambers and to serve as slave laborers.

“These charges once again demonstrate the resolve of the Department of Justice to deny safe haven in this country to human rights violators, no matter how long ago they committed their heinous acts,” Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer said in the press release. “The ultimate removal of John Kalymon will close a very painful chapter and provide a measure of justice to his victims and their families.”

Kalymon, 88, admitted in earlier court proceedings that he fled with retreating German forces in 1944. He immigrated to the United States from Germany in May 1949, concealing his Ukrainian police service from U.S. immigration officials so he could obtain U.S. citizenship in 1955.

A federal judge in Detroit revoked his citizenship in March 2007, concluding that Kalymon assisted in the wartime persecution of Jews by, “taking part in sweeps of the ghetto during periodic reduction actions; manning cordon posts around the city to prevent Jews from escaping before and during such actions; and hunting for Jews who attempted to hide or flee,” according to the press release.

This comes nearly four months after the Justice Department won a years-long and much-publicized battle against accused Nazi prison guard John Damjanjuk, who was deported to Germany in May to face charges at age 89.

The Justice Department has been investigating similar Nazi-era cases since 1979. Since that time, the Justice Department has won 107 cases, and it has blocked more than 180 suspected participants in Nazi crimes from entering the United States.

Nearly nine years ago, in November 2000, a grand jury in Washington indicted Madhatta Haipe for allegedly orchestrating the kidnapping five years earlier of four Americans and 12 others from "a recreational area utilized for swimming, hiking and picknicking" in the Philippines, according to the indictment.

After taking the group hostage, Haipe allegedly demanded a ransom and threatened to kill all the hostages if any of them attempted to escape. Over time, several hostages were released in an effort to "obtain and facilitate ransom payments," according to the indictment. By the end of 1995, all the hostages were released -- and Haipe and his co-conspirators had allegedly collected a total of $57,000 in ransom money.

One law enforcement official told Fox News that Haipe -- formerly a Professor of Islamic Studies at Mindanao State University -- is part of the group Abu Sayyaf, whose charter states its purpose is to either establish an Islamic state in the Philippines or to "reach Martyrdom in Allah's way," according to court documents.

"We will continue to use the full extent of our terrorism laws to prosecute those who take Americans hostage overseas," said Channing Phillips, Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. "The pursuit of justice on behalf of hostage-taking victims remains one of our top priorities."

The case against Haipe was unsealed this past May, on the same day he was captured in the Philippines. In the seven-count indictment from November 2000, he is charged with conspiracy, hostage taking, conspiracy to use a firearm, using a firearm during a crime of violence, and aiding and abetting.

With the case remaining under seal for nearly nine years, it is one of the longest stretches ever that a federal case has remained under seal, one source said.

Haipe was extradited to the United States, arriving in Washington only hours before his initial court appearance.

"Haipe is a dangerous man as the indictment spells out," said Justice Department spokesman Rich Kolko. "The Department of Justice never gave up on this case, and it's good to see him in an American courtroom to face justice."

Dressed in a dark blue jumpsuit, Haipe spoke only a few words while before a federal magistrate judge today.

Asked whether he could afford a lawyer, Haipe told the judge, "No, I don't have money." The court appointed him a lawyer.

Haipe is expected to be back in court next week, to face the judge who was initially assigned the case back in November 2000.