Somali-Americans recruited as "cannon fodder" -US

* Somali-Americans vanishing from U.S. homes raise concern

* FBI investigating, senator says arrests possible

* Recruits seen as unlikely to be domestic terrorists

By Randall Mikkelsen

WASHINGTON, March 11 (Reuters) - The FBI is investigating how young Somali-Americans were drawn to fight with an al Qaeda-linked group in Somalia, but there is no sign they are being trained as domestic U.S. terrorists, authorities told Congress on Wednesday.

"Tens" of Somali-Americans, primarily from Minneapolis, have returned to Somalia to fight with the militant Islamist al Shabaab group that controls much of the country, officials of the FBI and the National Counterterrorism Center testified before the Senate Homeland Security committee.

Reports of the young men vanishing from home in recent years and turning up in Somalia have fanned concerns that al Qaeda, which has suspected leadership ties to Al Shabaab, could be training them to return to the United States under their U.S. passports and conduct attacks.

But the U.S. officials said the recruits, including a 27-year-old who blew himself up in October, were destined for fighting in Somalia mainly against Ethiopian forces that withdrew in January after a two-year occupation.

"Some get there and become cannon fodder," FBI national security official Philip Mudd said. "These folks aren't going over there to become part of terrorist cells. 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."