A Somali teen’s path to jihad
Abdul Qadir Mohammed remembers the imam’s powerful voice bouncing off the mosque’s white walls. It was 2001, a few weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a decade into Somalia’s anarchy. “Our religion must dominate until we die,” the preacher declared.
On that day in the mosque, his heart pounded as he joined the worshipers in thunderous chants of “Allahu Akbar” - God is Great.
“It was the day I was born,” Mohammed recalled.
Mohammed was 13 years old. He had never picked up a gun. But boys like him would soon be asked to sacrifice their lives for Islam. Mohammed felt no fear, only a sense of divine calling. “Everything in my life was about jihad,” said Mohammed, now 22, who has a boyish face, faint mustache and walks with a slight limp.
“Everything still is.”