One of the first Somalis to resettle in Minnesota in the early 1990s, Yusuf Abdurahman found work in a chicken processing plant in Marshall before meeting a beautiful woman he later married. On Tuesday, seated before several dozen community members inside the Minneapolis federal building, he urged a frank conversation about how young men like his son can become entranced by terror groups like ISIL.
"This is our reality," Abdurahman said of his son, Zacharia. "My son is in jail now because of that reality."
Abdurahman and two other family members who asked not to be named became the first relatives of the 10 Twin Cities men charged last year with trying to join the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) to share their stories in a community forum.
U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger, whose office housed the meeting, said the family approached with a request to speak before last month's trial of three Minneapolis men found guilty of trying to join ISIL. Luger asked members of the Somali-American Task Force to invite those who attended.
Zacharia Abdurahman, 20, awaits sentencing and faces up to 15 years in prison after pleading guilty in the case last year. His family took turns on Tuesday warning against denying that radicalization is a problem in the Twin Cities, home to the country's largest Somali-American population but also its largest source of young men charged with attempting to join or successfully joining terror groups like ISIL and Al-Shabab.
"I'm not an informant, I'm not being paid by the U.S. government to be here," Yusuf Abdurahman said. "I want to be here because I am a parent. … I'm here because I want you guys to know this issue is real."
Abdurahman's son and three others were stopped by agents in New York in November 2014 after trying to board planes for Europe. He backed out of a spring 2015 plan to acquire fake passports and fly overseas after crossing into Mexico, later telling Judge Michael Davis he feared he would get caught. Five others also pleaded and three were found guilty after a lengthy trial that ended earlier this month. Another man successfully reached Syria in 2014.
Hodan Hassan, chairwoman of the task force, moderated Tuesday's discussion and asked the family if they could identify any signs they missed that signaled a change in Zacharia. One relative blamed peer influence. Another suggested social media was a conduit for communication among conspirators at home and overseas. But each said there were few signs that Zacharia longed to fight abroad.