RadicalizationLocal U.S. Muslim communities fight Islamic State's recruitment efforts

In U.S. cities with larger Muslim populations across the country, local communities are reaching out to fight the threat of Islamic State online propaganda targeting their youth.

As theColumbus Dispatch reports, in cities such as Columbus, Ohio, Jersey City, New Jersey, and Portland, Maine, leaders of Muslim communities are refining the ways in which they independently deal with an increasingly digital and social media-based onslaught from fundamentalist terror groups abroad.

“The goal on this is to really stay in front of it and have consistent outreach that reflects the community,” said Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop. “You have to talk to young people about what’s important to them on a cultural front, and the important thing is to do it on their terms, not yours.”

Fulop and others in the city have formed an advisory council between the police department and local Arab-American leaders, with the hopes that an investment in recreation — providing youths with sports, chess, and other physical activities as is often used to quell street gang recruitment — will help stem the tide of influence from groups like the Islamic State.

The threat of recruitment from overseas extremist groups has come into sharper focus in recent months, following a string of arrests around the country. In Boston last week, authorities fatally shot a knife-wielding man that they said had wanted to kill police officers and had been recording statements that the FBI had determined as references to the influence of Islamic State recruitment videos.

Recognizing that previous years’ experience of attempting actively to foil plots through espionage and enforcement has damaged the relationship between Muslim-American communities and the government, a new low-key approach is taking shape.

“As law enforcement started casting around and trying to predict and interdict the next terrorist plot, by definition we damaged the relationship with that community because we saw that as the source of the threats, or at least the seeds that the threats were hiding in,” said James Shea, Jersey City’s director of public safety.

Thos bonds were increasingly frayed following the 2011 revelations that they New York Police Department had spied on Muslims in New Jersey without telling local officials. In Jersey City, that legacy has shaped the way the city is attempting to work with at-risk youth today.

“Absent the outreach at different levels, you could have the younger generations feeling alienated,” added Shea.

In Columbus and Portland, the homes to some of the largest Somali populations in the nation, measures have been taken to create a similar approach — connecting law-enforcement agencies and Somali community leaders in a friendly manner with the creation of the Law Enforcement Somali Advisory Group. While also better informing and connecting law enforcement, the group also works to congregate Somali-American youth ages 13-23, offering language classes, basketball leagues and field trips.

“The key is education,” said Abshir Haji, an adviser to the group. “Everyone has Internet access in their house. Everybody can get on YouTube and watch whatever. We cannot control that,” Haji said. “But what we can control is teaching them or giving them the right tools for them to distinguish what is correct and what is not correct.”

In Portland, these new approaches are already seeing favorable results.

“Such community policing is important for fighting day-to-day crime.” said Portland acting City Manager Michael Sauschuck. “It’s important for general, neighborhood problem-solving. And, it’s important for dealing with terrorism.”