Why young midwestern Somalis try to join Islamic State

ON May 3rd two Muslim men with rifles attacked a security guard at a venue in Texas showing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Both were shot dead before they killed anyone—they were incompetent terrorists, fortunately. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack. There is no evidence that it had any direct involvement, but the gunmen may have been inspired by the global jihadist movement. One of them, Elton Simpson, was questioned by the FBI in 2010 and later convicted of lying to them. He denied that he had made plans to go to Somalia and become a jihadist, when in fact he had.

For Richard Stanek, sheriff of Hennepin County, Minnesota (which covers most of Minneapolis), the story is all too familiar. For eight years he has been searching for the “magic trick” to stop young men from joining Islamic extremists, especially in Somalia. He has been called as an expert witness before Congress and shared his insights with officials from 38 countries.

Since the 1990s more than 100,000 Somalis have come to America as refugees. Many settled in the Minneapolis-St Paul area, which today is home to around 75,000 immigrants from Somalia and their children. The Cedar-Riverside neighbourhood in the Twin Cities is sometimes called “Little Mogadishu”. After they arrived, Somalis clustered and kept to themselves; many intended to return home as soon as the civil war was over. Somali women made little effort to learn English.

Since Mr Stanek became sheriff in 2007, several dozen young Somali-American men from Minnesota have disappeared to join the Shabab, a group of Islamist fighters in Somalia linked to al-Qaeda. But “It really hit home in 2009, when Shirwa Ahmed blew himself up outside of Mogadishu,” the sheriff says. Ahmed was the first known American suicide-bomber—and a graduate of a Minneapolis high school.

Over the past two years the danger has increased, as young Somali men, and some young women, attempt to join Islamic State (IS) rather than the Shabab. Yet Mr Stanek feels more confident. His relationship with the Somali community has much improved. He has made friends with a local imam, hired Haissan Hussein to be the first Somali deputy sheriff in Minnesota, and created a six-member team to build “communities of trust” with Hennepin County’s many cultures. The team includes Abdi Mohamed, a Somali who immigrated in the 1990s, whose full-time job is to liaise with Somalis. And Minneapolis has become one of three pilot cities for Countering Violent Extremism (CVE), an initiative by the Obama administration under which police try to connect with Muslim groups through local events, mentoring and youth programmes.

Read more: The siren song of IS

Source: The Economist