Their goal is to make Minnesota youths deaf to Islamic State's call

FILE - In this Thursday, Feb. 27, 2014 file photo, Mohamed Farah, left, executive director of Ka Joog, talks with Vice President Daud Mohamed in Minneapolis. U.S. Attorney Andy Luger will lead a delegation of local law enforcement and Somali community leaders, including Farah, to a meeting in Washington on Feb. 18, 2015. Farah said he plans to talk about of some the successes his youth group has had through its educational and arts programs. (AP Photo/Amy Forliti, File)

By Rubén Rosario
Monday, February 16, 2015

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The deeply moving discussion took place a while back during a meeting at Karmel Square, the oldest Somali shopping mall in Minneapolis. There, she bared her soul about her cousin, one of 15 men and one woman federal counterterrorism officials believe headed to Syria in recent months to join the Islamic State, the terrorist group. U.S. intelligence officials estimate they are among the 150 Americans from across the country who were recruited or went voluntarily to the unholy hell taking place thousands of miles away.

"He wasn't the kind of person who would engage in this," she told Minnesota U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger and others at the gathering. "When we saw it happening, we did not know what to do, who to call, who to reach out to.

"Frankly," the woman added, "we were embarrassed and wished it away. And then he left and then he was gone. We wish we had taken action sooner."

Action. That was the theme of a meeting last week in which Luger related the woman's words in an attempt to drive home the point that a community-wide response, with some help from Washington, is what's needed to curb, if not eradicate, the radicalization of local young Somali and Muslim men and women.

"It's time for action," Luger told an assembly of about 70 mostly Somali community and religious leaders and top law enforcement officials as he unveiled the start of what likely will be a federally funded pilot program. The Beltway calls it "Countering Violent Extremism.

" Locals have come up with a more Minnesota-Nice name to it: "Building Community Resilience."

WASHINGTON MEETING PLANNED

On Wednesday, Luger and a 15-member delegation will present Minnesota's action plan as part of a White House conference on global terrorism that includes representatives from roughly 50 countries grappling with similar recruitment problems. Belgium (population 11 million), for example, with 440, has the highest number per capita of Somali youths leaving the country to join the fight in Syria and elsewhere.

The conference was announced days after the terrorist attacks in France last month that left 17 people dead and dozens injured. The local delegation, which includes imams, youth workers and top cops, will meet with Vice President Joe Biden at the White House and compare notes with similar efforts taking place in Boston and Los Angeles.

According to Luger, the plan will include funding for mentorship, scholarship and after-school programs for Somali Minnesotan youth. Other proposed efforts include "community response" teams of educators, social service workers and mostly mothers to address problems arising in the community.

Meetings also are taking place with Minnesota's corporate community, which has expressed an interest in funding effective youth and job-skills programs. Job fairs also are planned.

STRADDLING TWO CULTURES

The delegation, no doubt, also will be seeking funding from Washington because several programs attempting to connect with disenfranchised Somali youths are grossly underfunded or working with shoestring, or nonexistent, budgets.

"Hopefully, it's a starting point," said Abdisalam Adam, 48, a delegation member and imam at the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Minneapolis.

Adam, a St. Paul ESL public school teacher, knew three young Somali men who left the Twin Cities to join al-Shabaab, another terrorist group, which seeks to topple Somali's fragile government and establish an Islamic state. Two died; the fate of the third is unknown.

The married father of two college students cited unemployment, education challenges and lack of jobs as among the obstacles facing some youths who might be vulnerable to recruitment by the Islamic State, a group Luger describes as "smart, sophisticated and well-funded."

But a key factor for the disillusionment is a crisis of cultural identity. Some youths are having a tough time straddling two cultures. They don't feel American, or don't feel treated as such, particularly at the airport, where they and their parents are subjected at times to extra scrutiny and checks.

They think it's an adventure and also fall gullible to the extreme ideology of these groups and "think that is Islam, which it is not," Adam said. "What they (Islamic State) are doing is wrong, very wrong, and Islam is not this kind of behavior."

GOAL: PUT SELVES OUT OF BUSINESS

Law enforcement delegation members making the trip are St. Paul Police Chief Tom Smith; his Minneapolis counterpart, Janee Harteau; FBI Special Agent in Charge Richard Thornton; and Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek.

A step in the right direction? No doubt. Tough going, though. The youths most likely to take off are the ones who won't take part in programs, or tell anyone they're being recruited, or speak to a righteous imam such as Adam to find out about the true religion. Folks have to make sure that whatever funds are forthcoming actually will go to programs that work and not become simply a money grab without results.

"No one here believes that we are going to solve this problem overnight," said Luger, whose office has prosecuted more than 20 individuals in recent years on terrorism-related charges stemming from the al-Shabaab and now Islamic State warfare.

"Our goal here is that in a couple of years, we won't have to do this anymore," he added before the meeting broke up. "We will have plenty of meetings. But they won't be about this topic and (we'll) move forward without this hanging over our heads."

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