Kenya: How Westgate Attack Affected Somali Community in Minnesota

Thursday Janaury 3, 2013

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September 21, 2013, was a dark day in Kenya's history. On that day a gang of terrorists attacked Nairobi's Westgate shopping mall; however the incident did not affect Kenyans alone. Thousands of miles away in the United States, members of the Minnesota's Somali community were paying close attention.

The reason being, the area has a record of young Somalis being recruited to return home and fight and there were claims that some Minnesotans may have been part of the attacks. The media there shifted its focus on the community as most of them outright denied any role.

At the Twin Cities where it had been rumoured that two or three of the Westgate attackers came from, there was a sense of unease among the residents. Minnesota hosts US's largest Somali-American population. Thousands of them live in Cedar Riverside, at Minneapolis-one of the twin cities of Minnesota. Cedar Riverside is densely populated and often can be compared to Eastleigh in Nairobi or Bondeni in Mombasa. Video rental stores, malls, groceries and money transfer outlets dominate the area.

When I visited the Twin Cities in early October last year, running through November on a US State Department funded program implemented by the International Centre for Journalists, I was keen to learn what has been happening on the ground, since the attacks. Early 2007 and 2008, there were numerous confirmed reports that a handful of American Somalis from Minnesota had been lured into fighting in Somalia, most of them dying in combat. Some of their families are still too traumatised to talk about the experiences or what exactly went wrong. My efforts to seek appointments with them did not yield much, as most never wanted to revisit the story.

But several mechanisms are now being implemented by some groups to help eliminate the issue of radicalism, and making sure that the Somali immigrant community in the Twin Cities are not lured into the chaos back in Mogadishu. One such initiative is being conducted by a non-profit organisation known as Ka Joog.

This is the brainchild of a group of Muslim youths who came together at the height of the radicalisation, and thought of ways to provide mentorship programmes for Somali youth in Minnesota. Abdul Mohammed, the marketing and public relations director of Ka Joog, says, "At first, it was an issue for the community, people didn't want to talk about it, but it became so frequent, and investigations were being done by FBI and government to find out why people were disappearing, and later being linked with such crimes.

The government agencies were trying to check on the spiral of radicalisation and were interrogating youths from certain families," According to Abdul, the interrogations were very invasive, secretive and covert, and thus, the locals felt angered, victimised and maginalised.

"There needed to be collaboration. We put together a conference-Radical Minds Youth Conference-held it Cedar Riverside-which happened in the fall- of 2009, to open up the doors for dialogue, for all stakeholders. It was the much needed opportunity and proved to be a successful event," he added.

Within the years, Ko joog became vibrant and was able to put up multiple educational events for the youths, leading to a drop in the reported cases of recruitments of youths from the area. So far, they have trained and educated hundreds of the youths in the area.

"Since the Westgate mall incident, radical issues are starting to come up, we are more capable to reach people through inter-linkages and partnership in efforts to stop what alShabaab has committed.

We were in Washington DC to meet the Somalia president, and on the day we were to leave, is when the attack happened, so we decided to drop at the Kenyan embassy and pass our condolences, where we told them it's not a Kenyan or African problem," said Abdul. The delegation assured the officer at the embassy, Jean Kamau of the Somalis' support. "We got back and tried to find out what is going on as far as Westgate mall attacks, since the media was trying to make a link between Minneapolis and the attack.

Some of the youths were said to be involved but that was not confirmed. We hosted a press conference, it was a negative issue-and to generalise the whole mass of people was wrong, we told them that only one percent will not make up the characteristics of a whole group of people. It's an ideological battle we are fighting," he said. "It's a tough job, the solution only arises from the bottom level-from a local level.

Extremists are radicalising locally from community. Words fly faster than birds. When someone gets radicalised, we hear it even before the news," Abdul added. The official added that they have developed very tight channels of communications and act as a link between Somali youth and FBI, with a committee in place that helps FBI do their job effectively.

When the Westgate attack occurred, Kenya's Foreign Minister Amina Mohammed, was reported by the Daily Mail online of September 24 saying that up to three American teenagers were among the terrorists and that they were aged between 18 and 19, of Somali or Arab origin, lived in Minnesota and one other place in the US.

Minnesota Public Radio, where I was attached, reported that Hodan Hassan of Minnetonka, Minnesota said two of her teenage nieces were injured in the attack. One niece, 17-year-old Fardosa Abdi, suffered severe leg injuries and has undergone two rounds of surgery; 16-yearold Dheeman Abdi suffered less serious wounds to an arm and a leg.

"Fardosa I don't think can talk now. Dheeman is able to talk, and I spoke with her briefly," Hassan said during the radio interview. "I didn't even want to ask what happened. I just said 'are you OK?' And I told her that she's going to be OK and we're praying and we love her."

The girls were born in Canada. They're of Somali descent and moved to Kenya to be with their parents, Hassan said. In Collegeville, Minnesota , three students at St John's Preparatory School have family members who were killed in the attack.

Two sisters from Kenya and another student from Ghana lost relatives, said Matt Reichert, the school's principal. Still, the students are doing well and sticking to their academic routine, he added. The US Today reported on September 23 that the Minneapolis FBI spokesman Kyle Loven said authorities were "monitoring" reports from the region of possible links. "We're not confirming or speculating on possible involvement at this time," Loven said.

Ka Joog's aim is to build a strong support network for the future and motivate the youth. "We would like to educate our little brothers and sisters--and our peers--to inspire them to pursue higher education, and to let them know that their community is here for them," Abdul added during the interview.

He stated that it was only through education and employment that the state of hopelessness and despair could be wiped out from the youths. Some of the questions, he says, the group asked itself during its formation was, what if we could build positive images of Somali, Africa and its people here in America? What if we could create a stress-free environment, a place where we share our talents, our voices, and our ideas in a positive manner?

What if we could be the village that helps to raise successful Somali children and youths in the Twin Cities? Ka Joog founder, Mohamed Farah, said al-Shaabab appeals to young men whose families came to Minnesota for a better life, saying the targets are often vulnerable.

"Al-Shaabab, as a terrorist organisation, they're very good at what they do. They tell these children there's a better life for you, and they use religious justification to back their recruitment efforts," he added. Another US resident, Mohamed Ahmed, has come up with a strategy to counter extremist ideology using a website in which he develops anti-jihadist cartoons, to achieve this.

"I advocate a new way of thinking and approaching extremism. If an average guy is doing the recruiting be it in Minneapolis or Majengo Kenya, then average Mohamed will provide counter ideologies that counters in direct terms that recruitment," he said.

According to Ahmed, information is power and the reason why average Mohamed wants to provide it on whole sale basis to create a working knowledge among the youth on how to go against extremist reasoning.

"I want to empower the children, the parents and clergy with talking points easy to understand easy to disseminate," he added. In his website page, his messages directed to the public are in three languages, English, Kiswahili and Arabic. " AverageMohamed.com is one that is aided by popular culture engines.

Be it television, radio, internet or magazine. We believe we can compete in a free market of ideas using same mediums to go for hearts and minds," he says, adding that Averagemohamed. com is a marketing tool owned by Waareya Inc. Mohamed says the site is not a religious site but a secular one which targets Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists and all other religious denominations.

He says they work in defense of democratic values and principles adding that democracy and humanity are also one and the same. He summarises his objectives saying, " The day you put the word Jihad in YouTube and 100 messages for peace created by averagemohamed.com pops up. The day you google suicide bombings and the first 100 messages is averagemohamed. com is created products against it as an Islamic value.

The day we get more hits against extremism videos than a dance craze on Facebook. By using popular culture engines television, internet, radio, posters, poetry, music, culture, politics and word of mouth," he added. The official added that the site needs partnerships with vested institutions and governments to achieve maximum impact with messaging.

Asked whether they are taking a risk, Mohamed said, "No more a risk than going to work on September 11 in the twin towers, watching a marathon in Boston, or riding in a bus in England, Israel, Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Mali, Somalia, Syria, Lebanon, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria or any country extremism shows up.

We will take the risk and wrath that comes along with our work. Hopefully with friends, partners and institutions like yours, we have no fear of enemies." He added that Muslims are in a new awakening questioning their lot and purpose in life, in rights and governance.

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