Following is a summary of a Washington Times article:
Tens of thousands of Somali refugees have been brought mostly to Minneapolis, Minnesota since the 1990s, with over a thousand arriving last year, often having problems assimilating and sometimes being targeted for recruitment by Islamic extremist groups.
“We have definitely seen targeted terror recruitment videos, videos aimed and targeted directly at the youth here in Minnesota primarily within the Somali community,” said Kyle Loven, an FBI spokesman in Minneapolis. “They’re going after disaffected youth — those who are isolated.”
Loven says the FBI has noticed a steady stream of Islamist recruitment videos specifically targeted at Minnesota’s Somali population, saying the FBI has established a strong liaison program within the Somali community to work with organizations and people who have a general uneasiness about their population being targeted. “The videos and the online messaging is clearly targeting youths from within the Somali community and it’s a challenge for law enforcement to determine who will be moved to action with these videos,” he said.
Since 2008, as many as 40 men from Minneapolis have joined Islamist groups after being recruited by jihadists through social media, according to federal officials.
Last year an American named Douglas McArthur died in Syria fighting for the Islamic State, and he had been recruited from where he lived in Minnesota.
In 2009, a friend of McArthur named Troy Kastigar posted a recruitment video for an Islamic terrorist group al-Shabab before being killed fighting for them in Somalia.
Also in 2009 another man from Minnesota joined al-Shabab and blew himself up in a suicide bombing at an Ethiopian consulate in Somalia, killing 24 people.
On Sunday, al-Shabab made a propaganda video warning about attacks on shopping malls around the world, including the Mall of America in Minnesota. Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the terror attack at a shopping mall in Kenya two years ago that left 67 dead.
In an effort to increase assimilation and deter against Islamic recruitment efforts, government agencies have greatly expanded state welfare programs to be the most generous in the country, but the problems remain including high unemployment with only 41% of males working.