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

Faiza Patel, co-director of the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program, said while some sting operations can be legitimate and not considered entrapment, the cases involving “mentally ill people — or people who would have otherwise been unable to mount an attack on their own — create a sense in the (Muslim) community that they are being unfairly targeted.” He adds that programs that seek to identify at-risk individuals can be faulty. “The risks of making mistakes are very high given that there is no consensus as to the indicators of someone who is going to become a terrorist.”

Shaikh, the former undercover agent, said part of the issue is that counterterrorism agents often feel that they need to be producing some level of results in response to the FBI’s efforts to “counter” extremism. “Part of the reason that 14 years after 9/11 we don’t have a handle on this problem is that we continue to focus almost exclusively on things like ideology and religion, instead of grappling with more complex questions about community engagement, mental health, and how aggressive foreign policies inevitably generate terrorism,” he told theIntercept.

Programs like Safe Spaces also aim to help communities understand their rights and ability to discuss politically sensitive issues without fear of government retribution. “Our goal is to treat Muslim communities like any other communities, not as something unique. We treat this as a public health program, not so-called ‘countering extremism’ in a way which stigmatizes an entire group within society,” said Beutel.

Since 9/11, members of the Muslim community have been hesitant to engage with individuals perceived to exhibit anti-social or near radical behavior. Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev was ejected from his local Boston mosque the year before the attack for making anti-American political statements. An attendee of his mosque told theIntercept that the pervasive fear of government agent provocateurs among the congregation led many mosque members to disengage from people who expressed radical views.

Programs in Europe meant to intervene before vulnerable youths take radical actions have had mixed results. A program in Denmark has been successful with rehabilitating returned foreign fighters and other individuals perceived to have been radicalized. The Prevent and Channel programs in the United Kingdom attempt to identify vulnerable individuals and recommend either the help of law enforcement or social services, but some Muslim communities have compared the programs to McCarthyism. Beutel said Safe Spaces takes a different approach. “We need to provide guidance to communities about how to deal with law enforcement,” he said. “The FBI are not our friends, but we are taxpayers, so to some degree we are their bosses. They have to be responsive to us.”