WASHINGTON – There is no evidence that radicalized Somali-American youths who have disappeared over the past two years are being trained as terrorists abroad to one day return and attack the United States, intelligence and law enforcement officials told members of a Senate panel Wednesday.

Although worrisome, their apparent recruitment by al-Shabaab, a militant group linked to al-Qaida, is more likely to signify that many are motivated to help their home country fight against Ethiopians who invaded in 2006.

“We do not have a credible body of reporting right now that leads us to believe that these American recruits are being trained and instructed to come back to the U.S. for terrorist acts,” said Andrew Liepman, deputy director of intelligence at the National Counterterrorism Center. “Yet obviously we remain concerned about that, and watchful.” Liepman and others testified at a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing to look into the disappearance of at least 12 and possibly 20 or more young Somali Americans who are believed to be with the militant group.

Of particular worry is the recruitment of citizens who hold U.S. passports, which offer easier access for a return to American soil and a greater potential for the establishment of sleeper terrorist cells in U.S. cities.

In October, suicide bomber Shirwa Ahmed, an American, took part in a series of coordinated attacks in Somalia. That, along with the disappearances from a closely knit Somali community in Minneapolis, has sparked concerns that al-Shabaab is targeting the area.

“What can we expect next?” asked Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), chairman of the committee. “They could return to the U.S. at any time – fully radicalized and trained in the tactics of terror – to launch attacks here, bringing to our cities the suicide bombings and car bombings we have so far escaped.”

Philip Mudd, an assistant FBI director, told the committee that the number of Americans thought to be recruited by al-Shabaab is relatively small.

“I would talk in terms of tens of people,” he said. “It sounds small, but every terrorist potentially is somebody who could throw a grenade into a shopping mall.” Mudd also cautioned that the count may not be accurate, due to the reluctance of families to report missing relatives for fear they would be branded a terrorist and barred from returning to the U.S.

“I am sure there are people we are missing,” he said.

A former United Nations adviser in Somalia told the committee that U.S. government silence on the 2006 Ethiopian offensive into Somalia inflamed anti-American feelings among many Somalis.

Some Somalis felt that the U.S. countenance of the Ethiopian invasion was retribution for the 1993 deaths of 18 U.S. soldiers, portrayed in the film “Black Hawk Down,” said Kenneth Menkhaus, now a political science professor at Davidson College in North Carolina.

For Somali militants, Menkhaus said, the final straw came last May, when an American airstrike killed the leader of al-Shabaab, seen as the main resistance group. “Al-Shabab announced that from that point, it would target all U.S., Western and UN personnel and interests,” he said.

Liepman said it’s a “public relations bonanza” for al-Shabaab to trumpet a multinational force fighting against Ethiopia.

Although al-Shabaab has links to al-Qaida, Menkhus said the group sees the ties as a marriage of convenience.

“They are not as strong as they once were and likely to get weaker,” he said.

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(c) 2009, Tribune Co.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

AP-NY-03-11-09 2032EDT