--- title: Reaching Young Somalis Before the Extremists Do | TIME description: Some of Minnesota's Somali refugees have been lured into terrorism. But community leaders hope soccer can give youth there an alternative to extremism canonical: https://time.com/video/DVUvEUmN/ og:title: Reaching Young Somalis Before the Extremists Do og:description: Some of Minnesota's Somali refugees have been lured into terrorism. But community leaders hope soccer can give youth there an alternative to extremism og:url: https://time.com/video/DVUvEUmN/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/DVUvEUmN/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Reaching Young Somalis Before the Extremists Do twitter:description: Some of Minnesota's Somali refugees have been lured into terrorism. But community leaders hope soccer can give youth there an alternative to extremism twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/DVUvEUmN/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # Reaching Young Somalis Before the Extremists Do > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Subscription: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME is a general-interest news organization founded in 1923, reporting on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world. A TIME subscription provides full access to that journalism in print and digital, from $20 a year, and can be cancelled at any time. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Reaching Young Somalis Before the Extremists Do [Watch (HLS stream): Reaching Young Somalis Before the Extremists Do](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/DVUvEUmN.m3u8) (5:21)  _Published 2010-10-28. Some of Minnesota's Somali refugees have been lured into terrorism. But community leaders hope soccer can give youth there an alternative to extremism_ --- Jul 27, 2023 3:06 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [](/video/xPdc6fsk/) ![Protesters Condemn Trump’s Targeting of Minnesota’s Somali Community \[VERTICAL\]](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/xPdc6fsk/poster.jpg?width=720)00:48 ### Protesters Condemn Trump’s Targeting of Minnesota’s Somali Community \[VERTICAL\] [Somali Refugees from Libya Put On a Show in Tunisia](/video/BcTP4TLI/) ### Somali Refugees from Libya Put On a Show in Tunisia [Yemen a Dead End for Somali Refugees](/video/ik7BIwMH/) ### Yemen a Dead End for Somali Refugees --- ## Transcript >> At the Garden of Eden in Suburban Minneapolis, a grave is being prepared. The cemetery is one of two resting spaces for the Twin City's Muslim community. Among the 200 burial plots is the unmarked grave of Shirwa Ahmed, a 27- year- old Minneapolis resident and Somali refugee who died in 2008. FBI officials returned his remains after he set up a suicide bomb in Somalia as part of coordinated terrorist attacks. >> A Twin City man believed to be a suicide bomber and a recruiter of terrorism. >> News linking Somali Americans to terrorism back in their country of origin has been a staple in Minnesota and nationally. In the past few years, around 20 Minneapolis men are reported to have traveled to Somalia to support the insurgent group, Al- Shabaab. But the ground efforts are being made in Minnesota to make Somali youth stay put. And there seems to be some success especially on the soccer field. A local charter school and a local non- profit have offered the world sport as an anchor to a better life for Somali- American students. >> Let's go! >> Buzz Lagos is Minnesota's most decorated soccer coach. Five years ago, he took a job developing a soccer program at Higher Ground Academy, a St. Paul- based charter school that is predominantly Somali. Lagos says his players make the most of things with minimal resources. When he started, he says kids had to share shoes and other equipment. He still has to pick players up and drive them home for most games and practices. >> Here we go on our way. On our way to practice. Let's go. I'd probably choose the van ride. Just getting in the van with 15, 16 guys. Their energy, their enthusiasm, the friendship you see, the good things that happen and the whole process of what we do. >> Lagos says most of his players live with a single parent or an extended family member in some form of public housing. Mosques, community centers, and now soccer team, he says, serve as their support system. >> Keep them engaged in school. Keep them engaged in the soccer that they're doing. Keep them growing as normal teenage boys in a nice setting to keep them away from the temptation to move into a setting where they might decide to join some radical Islamic group and become terrorists. >> Minnesota's Somali population ranges in numbers from a lowest census estimate of around 30, 000 to as many as 80, 000 according to community leaders. The first Somalis began arriving to Minnesota in early 1990s when civil war broke out. Abdirahman Mukhtar is the youth coordinator at the Brian Coyle Community Center in Minneapolis' Cedar- Riverside neighborhood. He says some of the local men who returned to Somalia were people he knew. Mukhtar says he thinks some common issues related to new immigrant groups are to blame. >> We have young adults who are 19 to 25 years old who also live in the neighborhood who don't have jobs, maybe some of them dropped out high school and some of them are in college, but they don't have any other place to go. >> I think they will engage the-- particularly Somali. Somebody has to engage them in a negative way. >> Jean Paul Bigirindavyi is the director of Thunder P. L. U. S ., a Minnesota non- profit using soccer as a leadership tool for local immigrant youth, the majority of whom are Somali. He's convinced Somali kids are getting recruited to go back to Somalia. He's also convinced soccer and other youth outreach programs can win the battle for their attention. He's met with Homeland Security and others to discuss creative strategies with Somali kids. Bigirindavyi says the U. S. government should look no further than its own foreign policy for solutions. >> This is, however, the same thing they try to do in Afghanistan, in Iraq, you know, use the military and development opportunities, engagements over these communities. That's what we need to do here. Engage the youth. -[ Foreign Language ] >> One of Jean Paul Bigirindavyi's former players is high school senior Abdul Razak Ismail. Now a high school senior, he is being recruited to play soccer in college. Ismail says none of his Somali friends have ever talked about going back to East Africa. >> I don't think a lot of kids would wanna be in a-- in a fighting, in a civil war. I mean they just be here. They wanna stay here, have their peace. >> Ismail says he's had his share of growing pains in the U. S ., but he says now the only way he'd ever think about heading back to Somalia is if they had a good national soccer team, but he says even then-- >> I would say no. I would say I wanna play for America. I think all Somali people are very thankful of America. They are. Trust me, they are. >> For TIME video, I'm Jesse Hardman in Minneapolis. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Reaching Young Somalis Before the Extremists Do","description":"Some of Minnesota's Somali refugees have been lured into terrorism. But community leaders hope soccer can give youth there an alternative to extremism","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/DVUvEUmN/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2010-10-28T16:10:30.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/DVUvEUmN.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/video/DVUvEUmN/","duration":"PT5M21S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/video/DVUvEUmN/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}} ```