One of the first Americans to vanish from this city was Bihi’s nephew, a 17-year-old honors student who joined al-Shabab in 2008 and was killed the next year. Bihi, a former interpreter for local hospitals, responded by launching a youth advocacy program to combat militant Islam. He earns no salary, and the undertaking has jeopardized his finances, his marriage and his reputation. He would happily quit tomorrow, he said, “if I believed there was anyone else crazy enough to do this.”
Many mosques, elected officials and even law enforcement agencies have hesitated to address the radicalization of a small percentage of U.S. Muslims, because the topic itself is so divisive. The focus on homegrown jihad is considered either the next front in the war on terrorism or an Islamophobic witch hunt sure to create more ill will.
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In his neighborhood of Minneapolis, Bihi is known either as “Super Somali,” for his frenetic efforts to fight al-Shabab, or as “ma’angag,” a Somali word that means obstinate, because some believe his relationship with law enforcement amounts to a betrayal of the Somali American community. One local mosque barred him from services; another invited him to join its leadership committee.
Bihi describes himself as an observant Muslim who prays daily and fasts during Ramadan. He said it is his responsibility to “save the religion I love from a very small number of extremists.”
On that sweltering afternoon in early June, he parked his car in front of the stepmother’s apartment in St. Paul, unsure whether to expect cooperation or resistance. He had spoken with Beledi a few times in 2008 before the young man showed signs of joining al-Shabab, but Bihi had never met his stepmother.
He walked to the end of a long hallway and entered a stuffy, one-bedroom apartment. The shades were drawn. The room smelled of cumin. Mumina Roba sat with her feet propped on a coffee table and fanned herself with a newspaper. Bihi knelt down by her side. They spoke for the next 10 minutes in rapid Somali.
Roba said she had come to Minnesota in 1996 with Beledi, then 12. She had taken care of the boy since his father’s death in Somalia’s civil war. Beledi had been a good kid, then a troublemaker, then a criminal. She lost touch with him when he was in prison, but relatives told her he had joined Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic Center, Minnesota’s largest mosque, and then moved to Kenya.
She heard nothing more until the FBI knocked on her door with bloody pictures of Beledi from across the world. Her asthma and arthritis were acting up. Her face had swelled from so much crying. She was tired, but mostly confused. Who had turned her stepson into a terrorist? How had he ended up in Somalia? What could she have done to stop it?
“I don’t understand,” she said.
Bihi nodded, squeezed her hand and told her to get some rest. He walked back to his car.
“There are no answers here, only more questions,” he said. “Sometimes this work feels hopeless, like trying to drain the ocean.”
He had heard from law enforcement officials that al-Shabab was strengthening its partnership with al-Qaeda and expanding its ambitions to the West. Its shadowy network of recruiters was gaining momentum in Minnesota and elsewhere. Meanwhile, Bihi had fewer resources than ever, with no money to run his programs and a shrinking support base within the community. The lackluster economy meant that most local Somali American teenagers were unemployed for the summer, leaving them frustrated and bored. Bihi guesses that as many as 25 more will fall prey to al-Shabab recruiters before school begins this fall.
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