American men and women all of them Somali Muslims hailing from Minnesota and all of them carrying US passports some have been suicide bombers other star in propaganda videos their exodus from the Twin Cities began in 2007 with a call to jihad in Somalia today their destination is the Islamic state the problem in previous years for the Somali Muslim community here Minneapolis was young men leaving mosques like this to travel back home and join the al-qaeda-linked terrible now the problem has shifted and it's much deeper since July of 2012 we haven't had any kids leave to
go join al-shabaab but we have had several leave now to go join Isis Bob Fletcher is the former sheriff of Ramsey County which includes the city of st. Paul what Isis is selling now is an opportunity to build something to build a new society and that's that's very very exciting for a lot of kids at least twelve Twin Cities residents have traveled to Syria to join terrorist groups in recent years all were Somalis except Douglas McCain an African American convert killed fighting alongside Isis last summer one Somali American Isis recruit even worked at Minneapolis st.
Paul Airport before joining the Islamic state the cruellest get all of these young people they mentor them they assess them they identifying them Abdul Razak B he is director of the Somali Advocacy Center in Minneapolis his teenage nephew fell prey to terrorist recruiters and was killed in Somalia in 2008 nobody would believe that a Somali American kid who grew up here had nothing to do with Somalia no control or anything or language would be brainwashed radicalized by the same people as some of the people we trusted so much and return him to Hellfire Somalia B
he has received threats for speaking out against the radicals of his Somali Muslim community he says he's fighting an uphill battle here as unemployed young people respond to the message of jihad we are trying with everything we can but our challenges are plenty because we don't have the resources to work with it's zero the twin cities are home to the largest Somali population in North America many of the more than 100,000 Somali residents came as part of a taxpayer-funded refugee resettlement program run by the US government assimilation has been a major problem a large number
live in neighborhoods like little Mogadishu this is a traditional East African market it's the kind you see in Somalia but it's here in the very heart of Minneapolis and it shows the changing face and the growth of the Somali community here in the Twin Cities war-torn Somalia has had no functioning central government for nearly 25 years and has become a hotbed for radical Islam Somali community activist Omar Jamal left behind that chaos only to confront a similar menace in the Twin Cities he says terror recruiters are having success beyond just the high school dropout types
the idea has always been Isis and even Al Shabaab targeted those kids but Valera came to find out that even a a student in universities and colleges are also vulnerable to this powerful propaganda machine according to Jamal radical Islamic ideology is a powerful recruitment tool for Isis and the Islamic state success breeds attraction Isis thus far succeeded in in in putting up an image where they are righting the wrongs and respecting the Muslim world bring respect back and it's working for them Erick Stakelbeck CBN News Minneapolis
