Daniel Maldonado - Attraction To Somalia

Attraction To Somalia

In November 2006, the two men decided to go to Somalia where there was a struggle to set up an Islamic society by insurgents. According to statements that Maldonado gave to the FBI, he hoped to find an Islamic society, as he said he had not felt at home in Egypt. Maldonado took his family with him, installing his wife and children in the capital of Mogadishu. The United States supported the government, not the Islamic insurgents.

Maldonado went on with Hammami to an Al-Shabaab training camp in southern Somalia, in Kismayo, where he contracted malaria. The Boston Globe reports that an FBI affidavit asserts Maldonado took training in Somalia in bomb-making and military skills, taught by Al Qaeda experts, among others.

The family left Somalia with others, with the men and women traveling separately. His wife Tamekia was with their daughters and was described as dying after a high fever, likely due to malaria, shortly before the group reached Kenya in January 2007. She was buried immediately along the way.

On January 21, 2007, Maldonado and his son were captured by Kenyan military authorities as he went over the border from Somalia, seeking to escape invasion by Ethiopian and other forces. By that time, he had his daughters with them, and the three children were with him briefly in jail. His multi-national interrogators included a police terrorist investigator from Houston. Kenya expelled Maldonado, turning him over to US officials. Special Agents of the FBI took custody and escorted him back to the United States, where he was kept in federal custody.

US officials returned his three children to the care of their grandparents in New Hampshire. Maldonado's parents, now living in Londonderry, New Hampshire, have custody and Yolanda Cunningham sees the children frequently.

In mid-February 2007 the United States federal government charged the 28-year-old Maldonado in Houston with getting military training from a terrorist organization in Somalia,, including weapons, bomb-making and interrogation techniques. Maldonado is notable because his charge in a Houston, Texas federal court was the first time a US citizen has faced charges for participating in terrorism in Somalia.

The FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III delivered a speech on March 28, 2007 at the National Defense University, in which he referred to Maldonado's fighting in Somalia and arrest:

... such as the arrest of suspected terrorist Daniel Maldonado. Maldonado, an American citizen who converted to the Muslim faith, moved from Houston to Egypt in November 2005. He then traveled to Somalia to practice what he called 'true Islam'. According to the indictment, while in Mogadishu, Maldonado participated in a jihadist training program that included weapons and explosives. He said that he was willing to fight on behalf of Al Qaeda and even offered to act as a suicide bomber. Kenyan military authorities captured Maldonado in January. Members of the Houston Joint Terrorism Task Force transported him back to the United States."

Rodwan Saleh, president of the Islamic Society of Greater Houston, said "the enthusiasm of recent converts can be exploited by some extreme groups." He had not known Maldonado, but said that perhaps he had been attracted to the dark side of Islam.

The case moved rapidly in the court. In April 2007, Maldonado pleaded guilty to receiving military training from Al-Shabaab. His conviction was due to work by the Joint Terrorism Task Force, with members from the FBI and the Houston Police Department. On July 20, 2007, the judge sentenced him to the statutory maximum of ten years in prison for the crime, with an additional three years of supervised release, and a $1000 fine.