“Divided Loyalties: Young Somali Americans and the Lure of Extremism” details the experiences of a would-be ISIS recruit who flipped and wore a wire for the FBI to inform on friends. Beyond his personal story, the book explores the troubling cases of more than 50 Americans – most Somali Americans from Minnesota – who joined, tried to join or supported ISIS, al-Shabab and al-Qaida. Along the way, the narrative touches on assimilation, race relations and President Trump’s policies in the American heartland.
The book also examines the possibility of young people coming to see things very differently, given healthy influences. The informant, a teen when his radical convictions first developed, has since joined the Army National Guard in Minnesota and expects to ship off to the Middle East in the spring. He went through quite a turnaround, aided by a couple FBI agents.