Washington, 12 March-(ANA)-US officials say several cases of US citizens of Somali origin returning to their homeland to join the Islamist al-Shabaab militia are being investigated.
A Senate committee heard most of the young recruits came from Minneapolis city in the US state of Minnesota.
Al-Shabaab leaders have admitted having links to al-Qaeda but the officials said there was no evidence of Somali-Americans planning to attacks the US.
The US state department considers al-Shabaab as a terrorist organisation.
The radical Islamist guerrilla group now controls much of southern and central Somalia.
Andrew Liepman, deputy director for intelligence at the NationalCounterterrorismCenter, said: "They are going to Somalia to fight for their homeland, not to join al-Qaeda's jihad against the United States, so far."
He told the Senate Homeland Security committee al-Qaeda did not have strong organisational links to al-Shabaab, despite alleged leadership ties.
Somali-American recruits to al-Shabaab have included a 27-year-old college student from Minneapolis who blew himself up in Somalia last October.
FBI national security official Philip Mudd said: "Some get there and become cannon fodder.
"A lot of them are being put on the front line and some of them, I think, have been killed on the front line, from the United States."
Many Somalis fled their homeland after factional fighting began in 1991.
Up to 200,000 Somali-Americans live in the US and other population centres for the ethnic group include Seattle, San Diego, Atlanta and Columbus. (ANA)
Amnesty/Report