[BIGSTORY.AP.ORG] As a spoken word artist, Abdirizak Mohammed Warsame liked to talk to other young Somalis about following their dreams. In a video posted online in 2011, the teenager stands at a microphone and encourages teens to stay focused on their goals in life."You guys are tomorrow. And all you have to have, to get anywhere you want, is determination," said Warsame, who was active in a local arts group, was a regular at a neighborhood center, and whose mother and cousin were leading voices against radical recruitment in Minneapolis' large Somali community.
In recent years, about three dozen young men from Somali neighborhoods in Minnesota have left to join bad boy groups fighting in Somalia and Syria, making the area one of the leading sources of U.S. recruits for radical Islam. Local leaders have launched a major effort to stop the flow by building up positive influences on the thousands of young Somalis in the area. And in many ways, Warsame seemed to embody the key points: hopeful attitude, engaged in the community, with strong family support.