RadicalizationU.S. Muslim communities develop their own counter-radicalization programs

Published 6 May 2015

Almost fourteen years after the 9/11 attacks, young vulnerable Muslim youths are still subject to surveillance by law enforcement agents who have been given a mandate to identify radicalism within America’s Muslim communities. Muslim community leaders across the country are looking to provide an outlet for vulnerable youths to express their radical views, in the hopes that the community will take care of itself. “Heavy-handed tactics don’t work,” says one community leader. “The fact is that for many people, there needs to be a third option between locking them up in jail and just doing nothing if they might be a danger to themselves or others.”

Almost fourteen years after the 9/11 attacks, young vulnerable Muslim youths are still subject to surveillance by law enforcement agents who have been given a mandate to identify radicalism within America’s Muslim communities. In some cases, FBI agents, through the use of informants, have pushed troubled and in some cases, mentally ill youths, to plan and attempt to carry out domestic terror attacks.

FBI director James Comey recently commented that the agency has “investigations of people in various stages of radicalizing in all 50 states.” A 2014 Human Rights Watch report found that the FBI now maintains a network of 15,000 confidential informants throughout the country, the most at any time in the agency’s history.

The Intercept reports that Muslim community leaders across the country are looking to provide an outlet for vulnerable youths to express their radical views, in the hopes that the community will take care of itself. “Heavy-handed tactics don’t work,” said Mubin Shaikh, who worked as an undercover agent for the Canadian Security Intelligence Services in several terrorism cases, and is now pursuing a Ph.D. in the psychology of radicalization. “The fact is that for many people, there needs to be a third option between locking them up in jail and just doing nothing if they might be a danger to themselves or others.”

The Muslim Public Affairs Council launched the Safe Spaces Initiative after a series of cases involving what is seen as government entrapment of troubled Muslim youths. “The program was inspired by the case of Mohamed Mohamud, the purported Portland bomber,” said Alejandro Beutel, who helps run the program. “He was a 19-year-old kid who came from a broken home, had substance abuse and mental health issues. He started saying some things which alarmed his father, who then called the FBI.”

“But the FBI didn’t ‘help’ Mohamud,” Beutel said. “They introduced him to an informant who aggressively pushed him even further in a negative direction, ensuring that he would spend the next several decades of his life behind bars. If his father had gone to the community, and if they had the tools and confidence to deal with troubled youth like this, Mohamud might not have had his life destroyed as it was.”