Normally I would just put an updating link on the original post we did on the missing Minneapolis Somalis. However, this Wall Street Journal article yesterday had a few important new nuggets of information I wanted to highlight.
U.S. Somali community leaders estimate that as many as 20 men may have left the U.S. to fight in the past two years. [We’ve heard the number 40 mentioned]
The reports have raised concern among counterterrorism officials about immigrant youths being recruited by radical groups. For years, terrorism experts have believed that better assimilation of immigrants in the U.S. than elsewhere makes the threat of radicalization of young Muslims less than it is in Britain and other countries with large immigrant communities beset by high unemployment and less opportunity. The Somali case could cause that view to be reassessed.
Experts on Islam, like Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch, keep hammering away at the point that Islamic terrorism (jihad) is not a result of poverty, unemployment, or no opportunity, it is an imperative of Islam itself, and we agree. It is good to hear that maybe our so-called “terrorism experts” might be finally catching on!
Then here is the other bit of new information. We have been wondering if Somali youths were missing from elsewhere in the US and the FBI seems to confirm that they are.
E.K. Wilson, an FBI special agent in the bureau’s Minneapolis office, said he couldn’t confirm the existence of an investigation, but he said the FBI is aware that “a number of young Somali men from throughout the United States have left, potentially to fight with terrorist groups. We’re in the process of working with the local Somali community to get the parents to come to us with concerns about radicalization of youths.”