Abdirahmaan Muhumed is reportedly the second black American to have been killed while fighting in Syria for the jihadist group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, according to CBS News and KSMP-TV in Minneapolis.
Muhumed was reportedly killed in the same melee that took the life of Douglas McAuthur McCain, the first American—and first black American—known to have been killed in the civil war raging in Syria. Both McCain and Muhamed were from Minnesota.
U.S. officials have not confirmed Muhumed’s death, but Fox 9 News is reporting that an undisclosed source has said that U.S. officials notified a second Minnesota family that their relative had been found dead.
While McCain was not of Somali descent, CBS News reports that “both McCain and the second American were from the Minneapolis area. Home to the largest population of Somalis outside East Africa, it has become fertile ground for Islamic terrorist groups looking for recruits.”
The ISIS fighters in Syria are using social media programs and recruitment videos to entice susceptible Americans.
“Americans are being recruited in a litany of ways,” FBI investigator Kyle Loven told KSMP-TV, adding, “Social media is a big way.”
Leaders of Minneapolis’ Somali community have denounced ISIS and its tactic of recruiting Americans who are often extremely vulnerable because of high unemployment. There’s even been a push to recruit young Muslim-American women.
“But we are aware of their messages that they were sending to the last few months over the Internet, including recruiting young women to be married off to the jihadis," Abdirazak Bihi, a community activist in Minneapolis, told CBS News.