TIMELINE | THE MISSING MEN | MORE STORIES

• December 2007: Shirwa Ahmed, Kamal Hassan, Ahmed Ali Omar, Salah Osman Ahmed, Abdifatah Yusuf Isse and and Khalid Mohamud Abshir leave for Somalia.

• February 2008: Zakaria Maruf, 29, a reformed gang member who became religious in later years, leaves for Somalia.

• August 2008: Two 17-year-old boys from the Twin Cities leave for Somalia: Harding High School student Mustafa Ali Salat, then 17, of St. Paul and Mohamed “Miski” Hassan of Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis. The two had tried to buy plane tickets to Africa a few months before, but a mosque volunteer who worked at the travel agency said she helped thwart those early plans.

• Oct 29, 2008: Five suicide-car bombings kill dozens in northern Somalia. One of the bombers is believed to Shirwa Ahmed, a 27-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen from Minneapolis.

• Nov. 3-4, 2008: Roosevelt High School senior Burhan Hassan of Minneapolis; Jamal Bana, a security guard who studied at local community colleges; Muslim convert Troy Kastigar of Minneapolis; and University of Minnesota students Mohamoud Hassan and Abdisalam Ali depart for Somalia by plane.

• November 2008: Individuals with ties to the missing men are subpoenaed to appear before a federal grand jury in Minneapolis. They include young friends of the men who received phone calls from the men after they left for Somalia. (Read related story)

• Dec. 6, 2008: Families of the young men speak out at a press conference. Relatives say all three — Burhan Hassan, Mohamoud Hassan and Abdisalam Ali — worshipped at the Abubakar As-Saddique mosque in Minneapolis. (Read related story)

• Dec. 8, 2008: Abubakar As-Saddique mosque holds a press conference denying any connection to the disappearances. (Read related story)

  • Further reading: Alleged links to Somalia fighting divide Minnesota community

  
  

• January 2009: Federal authorities widen their probe as they question Somali-Americans at airports, private residences and shopping malls as part of an investigation into the missing. In addition, some individuals are subpoenaed to appear before a federal grand jury in Minneapolis. (Read related story)

• January 2009: Zakaria Maruf, who has emerged as one of the leaders of the missing Minnesota men, is interviewed by a Somali radio station in Kismayo. Maruf heavily quotes the Quran and says no one coerced the young men into leaving for Somalia.

• Jan. 20, 2009: U.S. law enforcement officials investigate a false tip that Al-Shabaab, a hard-line Islamist group in Somalia, is planning an attack at the presidential inauguration of Barack Obama in Washington D.C.

• Feb. 3, 2009: A community panel aimed at bringing together families of the missing men and mosque leaders abruptly cancels a press conference. One organizer tells MPR News that the two sides "are not on the same page."

• Feb. 4-5, 2009: Feb. 4-5, 2009: Outreach workers in the civil-rights office of the Department of Homeland Security meet with government officials in Minneapolis to talk about how to engage the local Somali community. (Read related story)

• Feb. 10, 2009: Abubakar As-Saddique holds another press conference denying connection to missing men. (Read related story)

• Feb. 23, 2009: FBI Director Robert Mueller, in an address before the independent Council on Foreign Relations, provides the first official confirmation that authorities believe Shirwa Ahmed of Minneapolis became a suicide bomber last October. (Read related story)

• Feb. 25, 2009: Abubakar As-Saddique hosts an open house to dispel rumors linking its leaders to the disappearances. (Read related story)

• March 11, 2009: The Senate Homeland Security Committee conducts a hearing on Al-Shabaab recruitment in the U.S. Community members from Minneapolis, as well as national experts in law enforcement and counterterrorism, provide testimony. (Read related story)

• March 19, 2009: In an audio recording released on the Internet, Osama bin Laden calls for the overthrow of Somali President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, a moderate Islamist. Many Somalis, including a group of Islamic clerics, denounce the message and urge Al-Qaida to stop interfering with Somali affairs.

• March 30, 2009: A propaganda video, purportedly created by Al-Shabaab, is picked up by a U.S. monitoring group. A fighter who speaks in an American English accent — and who identifies himself as "Abu Mansoor the American" — calls for Muslims around the world to fight in Somalia. (Read related story)

• June 5, 2009: Burhan Hassan is reportedly killed in Mogadishu. Few details are known about the circumstances surrounding Hassan's death. Relatives say the family received a phone call from one of Hassan's friends in Somalia informing them of his death and burial in Mogadishu. Family members think he was killed by members of Al-Shabaab when they learned he was trying to leave the group. (Read related story)

• July 11, 2009: Family members learn Jamal Bana, a former student at Minneapolis Community Technical College, is killed in violence-wracked Mogadishu. Also believed to have died in the fighting is Zakaria Maruf, 30, one of the first Minnesota men to have left for Somalia for Al-Shabaab. Maruf is believed to have recruited his younger friends through phone calls to Minnesota. (Read related story)

• July 13, 2009: FBI unseals indictments it filed in February for Abdifatah Yusuf Isse of Seattle, Wash. and Salah Osman Ahmed of New Brighton, Minn. The indictments charge them with conspiring to "kill, kidnap, and maim, and injure" others in a foreign country. The FBI office in Minneapolis confirms that the indictments were part of a broad investigation into the disappearances of the missing Somali men. (Read related story)

• July 13, 2009: FBI agents search the homes of two Rochester women in support of the ongoing investigation. Amina Ali and Hawo Hassan say they believe they are under suspicion because they regularly send money and secondhand clothing to internally displaced Somalis in their homeland. (Read related story)

• July 17, 2009: U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison tells MPR News the U.S. government is trying to ensure the safe return of some of the young Somali-American fighters from Minnesota. (Read related story)

• August 4, 2009: The FBI conducts a raid of Amana Travel, a Minneapolis travel agency visited by at least two of the suspected fighters from Minnesota. Amana Travel previously said it refused to book flights for two teen-agers who wanted to travel to Somalia early last year. But the young men somehow made it to Somalia months later. (Read related story)

• August 12, 2009: A third man with Minnesota ties pleads guilty in the case. Kamal Hassan, 24, of Plymouth admits he lied to federal agents about his involvement with al-Shabaab. Court records say he went to train with the group in late 2007 and continued to “follow the orders of al-Shabaab in Somalia” after he left the camp. Earlier in the year, Hassan also pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorists and to a foreign terrorist organization. (Read related story)

• September 4, 2009: Suspected fighter and University of Minnesota student Mohamoud Hassan is reportedly killed in Mogadishu. Hassan's family members say they're still in the dark about who or what sent him into one of the most dangerous places in the world. (Read related story)

• September 11, 2009: Troy Kastigar, 28, a Muslim convert who apparently had no personal ties to the lawless east African country, was reportedly killed in Somalia, according to family friends. (Read related story)

• October 2-5, 2009: Somali President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, as part of a stateside tour of cities with large Somali-American populations, stops in the Twin Cities to speak at the University of Minnesota. The president called on the nation's largest community of Somali-Americans to help him fight extremism and rally behind his fragile government. (Read related story)

  • Further reading: MPR's interview with Somali President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed
  
  

• Oct. 6, 2009: Nevada Highway Patrol stops a car outside of Las Vegas. It was driven by Cabdulaahi Ahmed Faarax, a well-liked Minneapolis cab driver who had been interviewed repeatedly by the FBI and was on the terrorism watchlist. Two days later, Faarax and one of his passengers, Abdiweli Isse, are seen trying to cross into Mexico, fueling suspicions that more young Minnesotans are fleeing for Somalia to fight. Read related story

• November 17, 2009: Federal investigators indict Omer Abdi Mohamed on charges of supporting terrorists. The indictment against alleges he was directly involved in sending six young men to the chaos of their East African homeland. The indictment said he, "knowingly committed and caused the commission" of the disappearances of the first wave of fighters. (Read related story)

• November 23, 2009: Federal investigators unseal court documents unsealed naming eight individuals allegedly involved in a plan to send men to fight in Somalia. Authorities accuse the men of providing financial support to those who traveled to Somalia to fight on behalf of al-Shabaab, attending terrorist training camps operated by al-Shabaab, and fighting on behalf of the organization. (Read related story)