Why radical jihadists are cropping up in Minnesota, leaving to join terrorist groups - NY Daily News

Why radical jihadists are cropping up in Minnesota, leaving to join terrorist groups - NY Daily News

Minnesota is the land of 10,000 lakes, home of the Twins and the Timberwolves — and the unlikely incubator for a growing number of radical jihadists.
As many as 15 Somali-American men from Minneapolis-St. Paul left home in recent months to enlist with radical groups and join the fighting in Syria, according to the FBI.
“They all had the same issues,” said Mohamud Noor, acting executive director for the Confederation of Somali Communities in Minnesota. “They are young men who are looking and looking for their identity.”
Two of them reportedly turned up dead last week on the same Syrian battlefield far from home: Douglas McAuthur McCain and Abdirahmann Muhumed.
McCain, 33, was a convert to Islam who became increasingly radicalized in the years before enlisting with the terrorist forces of the Islamic State (ISIS), authorities said.
Muhumed, a 29-year-old father of nine, was apparently involved in the same firefight with Free Syrian Army fighters that left McCain dead.

 

AlHayat Media Center ISIS posted a recruitment video on YouTube featuring recruits from Britain and Australia. The FBI says at least 15 men from Minneapolis-St. Paul have joined the fighting in Syria in recent months.

“Allah loves those who fight for his cause,” Muhumed posted on his Facebook page earlier this year. The homegrown terrorist bolted Minnesota in 2012.
But authorities say the issue dates back at least seven years in the region. The most notorious cased involved local man Troy Kastigar converting to Islam and joining the terrorist group al-Shabab.
The group was behind the September 2013 attack that killed 67 people inside the Westgate Mall in Nairobi.
U.S.-born Kastigar, killed in 2009 in Mogadishu, was among the first wave of local men who answered the call to join the jihad in Somalia.
Kastigar was the son of a Native American mom, and changed religions about three years before his death.

 

AP Troy Kastigar, a friend of Douglas McAuthur McCain, was killed in Somalia in September 2009 while fighting with the terror group al-Shabab, officials say.

He even appeared in a posthumous al-Shabab recruitment video extolling the virtues of terrorism. The 40-minute clip featured three men billed as “Minnesota martyrs” for the cause.
“If you guys only knew how much fun we have,” Kastigar said in the Internet come-on. “This is the real Disneyland. You need to come here and join us.”
Kastigar and McCain attended Robbinsdale Cooper High School in New Hope, Minn. They were friends before jihad.
“They both were sort of searching, it seemed like,” Kastigar’s mom, Julianne Boada, told the Daily News from her front steps in Minneapolis. “I think both of them had a really strong desire to be needed and (be) of value.”
Minnesota is home to the largest Somali population in the United States, with about 25,000 residents.

 

Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post via Getty Images Somali Muslims pray during a Somali Week soccer tournament championship game at the Hamline University stadium on June 26, 2011, in St. Paul, Minn. The state is home to the largest Somali population in the United States.

“We are concerned how this radicalization and recruitment is being facilitated,” local FBI spokesman Kyle Loven told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “These questions are high priority, and we want to answer them shortly.”
Noor said there are a variety of issues, from poverty to peer pressure.
“Recruitment can happen in many ways,” he said. “This is friends of friends helping each other. That we know for sure.”
NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton said last week there were more than 100 American jihadists fighting abroad. Some are from the New York area, raising concerns that radicals could bring terror to our doorstep.
“We are watching that very closely,” he said.
Nancy Crotti reported from Minneapolis.
lmcshane@nydailynews.com