From AfPak to Somalia

This news today surely puts this news about the president's decision to pour 34,000 additional U.S. troops into Afghanistan into sharper relief:

Federal officials on Monday unsealed terrorism-related charges against men they say were key actors in a recruitment effort that led roughly 20 young Americans to join a violent insurgent group in Somalia with ties to Al Qaeda.

With eight new suspects charged Monday, the authorities have implicated 14 people in the case, one of the most extensive domestic terrorism investigations since the Sept. 11 attacks. Some of them have been arrested; others are at large, including several believed to be still fighting with the Somali group, Al Shabaab.

The case represents the largest group of American citizens suspected of joining an extremist movement affiliated with Al Qaeda, senior officials said. Many of the recruits had come to America as young refugees fleeing a brutal civil war, only to settle in a gang-ridden enclave of Minneapolis.

A fully resourced counter-insurgency in Afghanistan would do nothing to avert this kind of problem. It's not that we should ignore Afghanistan. But the idea that we need to put all our resources into a single basket in the name of counter-terrorism sure seems counter-productive.

(AP Photos)