Three U.S. residents indicted for aiding Somali terror group

Three residents in San Diego, Southern California, have been indicted on charges of aiding a terrorist group in Somalia, the U.S. attorney's office announced Tuesday.

The three defendants -- Basaaly Saeed Moalin, 33; Mohamed Mohamed Mohamud, 38; and Issa Doreh, 54 -- were charged with providing assistance to Al Shabab, a terror group that uses murder, beheadings and bombings to undermine Somalia's weak transitional government, the indictment says.

Moalin was arrested Sunday as he attempted to board a flight from San Diego's Lindbergh Field. Doreh and Mohamud were arrested Monday.

Al Shabab, listed by the State Department as a terror group, has claimed responsibility for a bombing that killed an American aid worker and 75 others in Uganda who were watching a telecast of a World Cup soccer match.

Although it has ties to al-Qaida, the group is not believed to have launched any attacks on U.S. soil, officials said.

In August, a former San Diego resident, Serwan Mostafa, 28, was indicted on charges of helping the same group. He remains at large.

Also in August, 13 other people, most of them U.S. citizens of Somali descent, were indicted on the same charges in three states.

Source: Xinhua