The Wrath of Khat

Several Seattle-area Somali immigrants are suing local police agencies, claiming they were wrongly rounded up in a massive sweep for khat done in conjunction with the DEA. Khat is a mild euphoric stimulant that's usually chewed in leaf form. It's illegal in the U.S. but ubiquitous throughout Africa, and common in U.S. cities with large East African immigrant populations.

Three years ago, armed agents from a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) task force crashed through the door of a Seattle apartment where Habibo Jama, a Somali refugee and U.S. citizen, lived with her brother, uncle and cousins. Jama, startled awake, opened her bedroom door in her nightshirt to find herself facing several men in black pointing guns at her and ordering her to the floor.

Almost simultaneously, at an apartment 20 miles away in Kent, Ali Dualeh, his wife and their seven children — ages 4 months to 17 years — jolted from bed when they heard a loud noise. Both parents made it to the hallway before they were tackled by agents from the Valley Narcotics Enforcement Team who had broken down their front door.

"Operation Somali Express" was a nationwide crackdown, but it's only real achievement appears to be bad blood between police and local Somali immigrant communities. Of the 19 men arrested in Seattle, 15 were dismissed without charges. According to the Seattle Times, most of those arrested in New York, Ohio, and Minnesota were never charged either. Agents seized money and property from many Somali families who were never charged, some of whom had to wait nearly a year before their savings and belongings were returned.

The paper suggests the raids may amount to yet another anti-drug operation that undermines the war on terror.

Some law-enforcement officials and Somali community leaders are saying the fallout from the operation has poisoned relations between law enforcement and the communities at a time when federal agents are looking for help.

Over the past two years, as many as 20 Somali men have disappeared from Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn., apparently recruited in area mosques to wage jihad in their own country.

Some have turned up fighting for a radical Islamic group in Somalia called Al-Shabaab, which U.S. intelligence sources have tied to al-Qaida. One American youth blew himself up at a U.N. checkpoint last October, according to federal investigators…

It is a very difficult community to walk into," said one law-enforcement official assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force in Seattle who spoke on condition of anonymity because he does not have permission to talk to the media. "There is a lot of mistrust there and part of it is because of these raids."

The lawsuit also alleges the Seattle police department conducts no-knock raids (or at least knock-and-announce raids that don't allow a long enough period of time before forcing entry) for all of its narcotics warrants. If so, the department would be in violation of the U.S. Constitution. But as is often the case with these multi-jurisdictional operations, there seems to be a lot of buck passing about whose procedures were actually being followed.

The city, in a response to the lawsuit, denies its practice is unconstitutional and said its officers were acting under the direction of the DEA. The DEA referred all inquiries about the lawsuit to the U.S. Attorney's Office. The agency, in court filings, said it can't be held liable for what the Seattle police officers may have done in leading the raid on Jama's apartment.

On the addiction/physical harm table, khat ranks below just about every other mood-altering drug available. The harm caused by overly aggressive government efforts to prevent people from chewing it is another matter.