Mom sees missing son dead in Web photo

MINNEAPOLIS, July 12 (UPI) -- A Minneapolis mother discovered her son had been killed in Somalia when she saw a photo of his bloody corpse on a Web site, Somali activists say.

Abdirizak Bihi, a Somali community activist in Minneapolis, said the mother of Jamal Bana, 20, saw a picture of her missing son dead with a bullet through his head on a Web site devoted to Somali news, The (Minneapolis) Star Tribune reported Sunday.

"They kept scanning the Web site for Somali news, and there it was," Bihi said. "What made it worse is that the mom saw the dead body."

Bana was one of a group of up to 20 young Twin Cities Somali men who abruptly left the country and returned to their homeland last summer. U.S. authorities have been investigating alleged links between Islamic terrorist groups in Somalia and the disappearances, the newspaper said.

Two other Minneapolis Somalis have died in the country, including a 26-year-old man who apparently committed a suicide bombing during a coordinated attack that killed 30 people, the Star Tribune said.