Body #2 Found at Cedar Avenue

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Thanks once again to an anonymous commenter for a tip on the latest from the Strib about Wednesday morning’s explosion and fire in a Somali neighborhood of Minneapolis:

A second body has been found in the wreckage of a Minneapolis apartment building that exploded and burned on New Year’s Day, fire officials confirmed Friday morning.

The discovery came Friday morning as crews resumed work removing debris from the site.

At least 14 people were injured, six of them critically.

The body of the first victim was discovered Thursday afternoon as excavating equipment began knocking down walls of the gutted three-story building shared by a grocery and 10 apartments.

Family members identified the two people not accounted for as Mrimri Farah, said to be about 60 years old, and Ahmad Ali, 57, who shared an apartment. Ali’s ex-wife Hawo Daqare said they divorced in 2006 but continued to share parenting of their son.

“I feel very bad, but I cannot do anything. Imagine if you lost someone,” she said.

She said Ali lived in Apartment No. 6 on the second floor.

Farah previously served in the U.S. Army and at one point was stationed in Iraq, said Shareef Hassan, a friend. Farah had gone to live in Somalia and came back to live in Minneapolis a couple of months ago. [emphasis added]

Consider this: there were almost no Somali immigrants to the United States before the “Black Hawk Down” debacle in Mogadishu in 1993. That means that any Somali-American who joined the U.S. Army did so sometime after that.

Mrimri Farah is said to have been sixty years old. That means he was at least forty when he joined up, maybe older.

The war in Iraq began in 2003. That means he was at least fifty when he served in Iraq.

Something is decidedly fishy here.

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As a result of the fire, worshippers at the Dar al-Hijrah mosque have been forced to meet elsewhere. Fortunately for them, a community center and a synagogue have pitched in to donate space for Friday prayers:

The fire also displaced the Masjid Dar Al-Hijrah mosque and the Islamic Civic Society of America from their building that wraps around the destroyed grocery-apartment building. Basim Sabri, a property owner who has served as a liaison between authorities and the mosque, estimated that it will be unusable for six months.

The mosque said that Friday prayers will be held at the nearby Brian Coyle Community Center.

Sabri has offered space in one of his buildings on E. Lake Street, and Rabbi Michael Adam Latz of Shir Tikvah synagogue said that “we would be delighted to welcome them into our space.”

None of the latest news stories resolves the conflicting assertions of the fire chief and the gas utility about the cause of the explosion.

Stay tuned. I don’t think this story is over yet.

Previous posts about the explosion and fire in Cedar-Riverside, Minneapolis, on New Year’s Day 2014:

2014   Jan   1   A Fiery Dawn in Minneapolis
        2   Enter DHS — It Was a Gas Leak
        2   The Gas Company Says: “No Way!”
 

27 thoughts on “Body #2 Found at Cedar Avenue”

  2. Pingback: News links for Jan 3 2014 – 2 | Vlad Tepes

  3. “Rabbi Michael Adam Latz of Shir Tikvah synagogue said that “we would be delighted to welcome them into our space.””

    Sure, after all, they’re the bomb! 🙁

  4. This looks like an ordinary fire. Nothing unusual.

    Fire starts in a room and burns slowly for a long time. It gets very hot. Then there is a smoke explosion, the window is blown out, and the fire suddenly gets plenty of fresh air and develops very fast.

    In a gas explosion theres no initial build up of heat, so there will be no fire or a smaller fire, but probably more damage to the building.

    Same with an explosive device. Less fire, but more damage if it’s a big one.

    • Any severe conflagration involving the living space of numerous single male Somali immigrants cannot be considered “ordinary”. Given the circumstances, it deserves a much more careful sifting for clues than would be usual. Instead, they’re destroying whatever evidence there might be. If we have learned anything since 1993, it’s that the government is not truthful, forthcoming, nor competent in most cases.

      • It was mainly the fire that destroyed evidence I think. Still there is plenty of evidence left – even the dead bodies now. The autopsies can tell if they died from trauma or from carbon monoxide – or semtex, natural gas, whatever. And the investigators have plenty of survivors, so soon they will know the answer to the big question: What did they do in the house to keep warm?

  5. via MyFoxTwinCities:

    ”
    VICTIMS DIDN’T SMELL GAS

    Two victims of the explosion spoke to reporters from the HCMC hospital beds on Friday.

    Abdi Qoby said the explosion took out the entire wall in his apartment. He added there was no smell of natural gas before the blast. Hersi Hassan said the fire left him with nothing: No money, no documents and no home.

    Read more: LATEST UPDATES: Cedar Avenue explosion and fire in Minneapolis – KMSP-TV

  6. It appears family members aren’t in agreement about their deceased relatives domicile:

    “Family members identified the two people not accounted for as Mrimri Farah, said to be about 60 years old, and Ahmad Ali, 57, who shared an apartment. . . .She said Ali lived in Apartment No. 6 on the second floor. – via StarTribune

    vs.

    “Family members believe the two were living together on the third floor.” -via KTTC.com

  8. The US military does NOT induct into its ranks 50 year olds. Even 40 is too old for them at times. This stinks to heaven and not because of some gas. The gas company said there was no gas leak, and this idiot came home from Somalia recently? I guess one of two things:

    1. Someone was making homemade explosives. Just like the kind they make in Somalia.

    2. Someone was cooking up some Meth.

    Take your pick.

    • Does the DHS usually show up at meth lab blow ups? – or just Muslim blow ups? – because that WOULD be profiling which is just SO naughty….

  9. Odd that the fire department doesn’t believe the gas company. It shouldn’t take weeks to find out if the building had natural gas! Jeez.

    Fire Chief John Fruetel said investigators were focusing on natural gas as a likely cause of the explosion that ignited the fire in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, although he said that weeks of investigation likely will be required to determine the cause.

    However, a spokeswoman for CenterPoint Energy strongly discounted gas as the culprit.

    “We had no natural gas in the area,” said Rebecca Virden, who based her assertion on the utility’s investigation and testing in the area. If the blast were due to were natural gas, Virden added, “the roof would come off, the walls would come out.”

    http://www.startribune.com/local/minneapolis/238600831.html

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  11. Send an attorney to hospital and assemble litigants against the utility that allowed the gas leak. Next move?

  12. Why in the hell are we allowing ANY Somali into the country? That should have never begun, and having begun should have ended 9/11/2001

  13. The U.S. Army recruited many older males as civilian contractors to work as interpreters in front line units. They chose the older males; especially those with gray hair because culturally they were given more respect because of their age by the locals. They also used them as instructors to junior officers and NCO’s on what constituted good and bad manners to the indigenous populations. The article doesn’t mention country of origin for the victims, just gives their names. It would be difficult for someone of Somali descent to relate linguistically and culturally to an Iraqi; so it begs the question as to what is the country of origin for the 2 victims.

    • pathfinder —

      Check out the name. It’s plainly an African one, and not an Arab one. “Mrimri” has that leading “m” in front of a consonant, which is a standard prefix in some of the African languages.

      Besides, Arabs consider the Somalis to be very much their cultural inferiors, and would be loath to take up residence in a building where “slaves” predominated.

      I think the guy was a Somali. The building seems to be pretty much a Somali clan hall.

    • “They also used them as instructors to junior officers and NCO’s on what constituted good and bad manners to the indigenous populations.”

      There’s that PC MC inversion again. Perhaps WE should have been instructing THEM about what constitutes good and bad manners in the CIVILIZED world.

      Here’s a hint: Making bombs to try to blow up the people who are feeding you and your home country is BAD manners.

      • I concur; I was just relating what I saw. We should have prosecuted the war in a manner in which the will of the people to fight was completely destroyed and at the end of the day they knew they were a conquered people. Fallujah should have been razed to the ground. No one should have been allowed to escape with their lives as an example of what could happen if any bs went down. But we didn’t.

  14. Something smells aright and it it the smell of political correctness.

    ANYONE, I mean anyone who in any way allows, supports, encourages, permits, or turns a blind eye to muslims entering or living in the USA or anywhere in the West is an enabler. Just think about it, if you refuse to buy, sell, rent, or loan anything, or hire any of them you are an enabler.

    If you do the oppose it will only aid your own country. The individual may be a really nice person, not involved in anything political or destructive. But is that individual but going to tell you that they are helping crazy cousin Mahmood come to stay, that they are sending money to some Muslim who may (without their knowledge) be intent on destroying you or your country? No Muslim can be a good Muslim and a good American, or Frenchman or anything else. Their allegiance must be solely to Islam – that is the bottom line.

  15. As per nobama, DHS’s walking orders are to ensure no evidence tieing the explosion to the mosque can leak. What is in the mosque, you think?

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