Abdirahmaan Muhumed, above, told MPR News through a series of Facebook messages that he is fighting alongside the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. 
 
 Over the past few months, as many as 15 young Somali-American men from the Twin Cities have traveled to Syria to join radical groups trying to overthrow President Bashar Assad's regime, according to the FBI. 
 
 One of the men, Abdirahmaan Muhumed, told MPR News through a series of Facebook messages that he is fighting alongside the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. ISIS, as it is commonly known, captured the Iraqi cities of Mosul and Tikrit this week. 
 
 "A Muslim has to stand up for [what's] right," Muhumed, 29, wrote in a Jan. 2 post. "I give up this worldly life for Allah." 
 
 Muhumed, who claims he wants to save the global Muslim community, said if that causes others to consider him a terrorist, he is "happy with it." He asked Allah to forgive him and to "make my mom strong for the decision that I made." 
 
 “Most of [those who left] don't have the resources to even buy a ticket to go to Chicago. So that means there is some influential individuals who are taking advantage of our youth.” Mohamud Noor 
 
 In recent months, Syria has lured many young Muslim men from abroad who want to join the jihad against the Assad government, which has waged a bloody conflict against its opponents. Many of the foreign fighters are from other parts of the Middle East but some have arrived from the United States. 
 
 For some in Minnesota's Somali-American community, Muhumed's journey from shooting hoops at the basketball court and pumping iron at a gym in Uptown Minneapolis to fighting alongside jihadists in Syria is seen as a manifestation of an ongoing recruitment and radicalization in Minnesota's Somali community. 
 
 "Most of [those who left] don't have the resources to even buy a ticket to go to Chicago. So that means there is some influential individuals who are taking advantage of our youth," said Mohamud Noor, executive director of the Confederation of Somali Community in Minnesota. "So it's up to us to defend ourselves. This is not only a fight for our youth. It is a fight for our future." 
 
 Federal officials say it is illegal for Americans to independently travel overseas to fight in civil wars or armed conflicts against foreign governments. 
 
 FBI officials in Minneapolis would not discuss individual cases, but told MPR News that the Somali-Americans left for Syria in recent months, and that the agency has been investigating the situation for the last couple of months. 
 
 “Family is not gonna save me frm [sic] hell fire because muslims are getting kill[ed] and if i just sit here i will be ask in the [hereafter].” Abdirahmaan Muhumed 
 
 Friends of Muhumed said they are perplexed as to what motivated the young man they remember as outgoing and party-loving to join radical groups in Syria. 
 
 Unlike the roughly two dozen Minnesota men who federal authorities say traveled to fight alongside Islamic insurgents in Somalia since 2007, Muhumed and his Twin Cities peers enlisted to fight in a place to which they have no family or ethnic connection. 
 
 The sudden shift to radicalism by Muhumed, whom friends know as Abdifatah Afweyne, was "very unpredictable," said Abdinasir Mohamed. 
 
 Mohamed was shocked when he saw Muhumed's photos on Facebook, in which he is carrying guns and wearing military uniforms. 
 
 "It was really hard for me to believe because the guy seemed he was busy with his own life, trying to make it," said Mohamed, who described his friend as humble. "And [for] him to leave his family and kids, and just go to the other side of the world, that was really surprising to me. I've not really expected him to do that type of move." 
 
 [For] him to leave his family and kids, and just go to the other side of the world, that was really surprising to me. I've not really expected him to do that type of move.” Abdinasir Mohamed 
 
 Muhumed's Facebook profile shows startling photos from Syria. 
 
 On Jan. 3, Muhumed posted on his Facebook page a picture of him carrying the Qur'an in one hand and rifle in the other. The caption "Shaam," refered to the Islamic name for Syria and the surrounding region. 
 
 Muhumed said in Facebook messages that ISIS is "trying to bring back the khilaafa," a reference to an Islamic empire. He also said "Allah loves those who fight for his cause." 
 
 Muhumed's account of his travels follows the disappearance two weeks ago of Abdi Mohamud Nur, a 20-year-old Somali man from Minneapolis. Nur's sister, Ifrah, said in an interview with the Voice of America on June 1 that her brother told her in text messages that he is in Turkey and was on his way to Syria to fight with the jihadists there. 
 
 In one image posted May 8 on Facebook, Muhumed is seen smiling as he firmly holds an AK-47 rifle, his eyes fixed on the camera. He is in what seems to be a classroom and behind him is a blackboard with Arabic words scribbled on it. 
 
 In another panel photo, the head of a dead man is held up to the camera, eyes lifeless and mouth slightly ajar; in the next, the man's head has been tied with a yellow ribbon from the chin up, his eyes and mouth shut, as if in preparation for burial. 
 
 In a series of photos posted on March 19, Muhumed stands on top of a tank, rifle slung across left right shoulder, right hand raised, as if pointing to the sky. 
 
 Muhumed's Facebook friends were stunned. 
 
 "Abdi, my brother, you are wrong. You should not have done this," one of his friends wrote in Somali on Muhumed's Facebook page. 
 
 "Come [back], uncle," another friend commented. "This feels so wrong...don't u get it." 
 
 Many friends said they are perplexed at why Muhumed went to Syria, which in their view is not a pressing concern to many Somalis who are more concerned about what's happening in their home country, Somalia. 
 
 MPR News contacted one of Muhumed's wives and a family member, who both declined to be interviewed for this story. 
 
 Muhumed, a father of nine children, was passionate about the politics of Jubaland, a regional administration in Somalia, and talked about the Ogaden National Liberation Front, or ONLF, a rebel group that is fighting for the autonomy of Ethiopia's Somali region, according to posts and photos on his Facebook page and interviews with his friends. 
 
 "Family is not gonna save me frm [sic] hell fire because muslims are getting kill[ed] and if i just sit here i will be ask in the [hereafter]," Muhumed said. 
 
 When asked why he did not instead go to Ethiopia and join the ONLF, Muhumed said in the Facebook interview that the rebel group is "fighting for land" and not for the cause of Allah. ONLF, he said, "is not fighting for to bring Allah's laws that is why [it] is taking long time to bring freedom [to the Somali region of Ethiopia]." 
 
 FBI investigators aim to discover who is recruiting the Minnesota men, said Kyle Loven, an FBI spokesman in Minneapolis. 
 
 Muhumed's departure for a jihadist movement is similar to what happened in the Somali community in 2007, when more than 20 young men from Minnesota disappeared and joined the al-Shabaab militant group in Somalia, some of them reportedly driven by nationalism after Ethiopia invaded Somalia in late 2006. 
 
 Farah Mohamed Beledi Photo courtesy of Ramsey County sheriff's office 
 
 After their departures, Loven said, the FBI discovered that "the call for jihad has resonated with a few young men within the Somali community" who are "disaffected" and "isolated." He said the FBI has tried to build rapport with the Somali community for seven years, since the first wave of Minnesota men traveled to Somalia to fight with al-Shabaab. 
 
 Friends said Muhumed had family problems, separations from at least three wives. His shift to radical ideology fits the similar profile of Zakaria Maruf and Farah Mohamed Beledi, two men from Minnesota who were in their late 20s when they left and who both had criminal records and struggled to succeed in the United States. 
 
 Maruf and Beledi both had joined al-Shabaab and died in Somalia, with Beledi becoming the second Minnesotan suicide bomber in the Horn of Africa country. 
 
 "It is something that we have seen in this division, and it is something that we are actively working with the Somali community here in Minnesota to try to prevent," Loven said. ||||| Sources tell Fox 9 News a second Minnesota family has received word that a man who left the Twin Cities has died fighting with the terror group ISIS in Syria. 
 
 
 
 At about 9 p.m. on Wednesday, leaders in the Somali-American community heard that State Department officials notified a Minneapolis family that a second American was found among the dead militants. According to Fox 9 sources, Abdirahmaan Muhumed -- who was the focus of an MPR story just two months ago -- died in the same battle as Douglas McCain, a former Robbinsdale-Cooper High School student. 
 
 MORE: 'My cousin isn't a terrorist' 
 
 The many faces of Douglas McCain were captured in at least nine mug shots taken in Minnesota for minor offenses, but many still struggle to believe the quiet student could have become a fighter overseas. Shelly Case remembers him as a friendly neighbor who played basketball with her young son and kept him out of trouble. 
 
 "Shocked, shocked because that was nothing like him," Case said. "He was always respectful. He was always looking out for other kids here. He was a good kid." 
 
 Case knew McCain when he and his family lived in an apartment building in New Hope, Minn. -- but federal investigators say he became increasingly radicalized with age. In fact, they say he showed his support for ISIS on Facebook and Twitter before traveling overseas to join the fight -- and sources now say he's not the only Minnesota man who took a one-way trip. 
 
 "Americans are being recruited in a litany of ways," FBI investigator Kyle Loven told Fox 9 News. "Social media is a big way." 
 
 A handful of Minnesotans are believed to be among the 100 or so Americans who have left the country to take up arms alongside militant extremists in Syria. Most of them are disaffected young men targeted by recruitment videos like the one put out by al-Shabaab, praising Minnesota's "martyrs." Troy Kastigar is among the Minnesota men who died fighting for that terror group in Somalia two years ago, but before that, he and McCain were schoolyard friends. 
 
 "Minnesotans should be concerned about that because we don't want our young people to be misled, think one thing, find out it's a different thing, and basically succumb to propaganda," Loven said. 
 
 According to Abdi Bihi, a leader in the local Somali community, ISIS has recently begun trying to recruit young women from the Twin Cities to their cause as well. 
 
 "They are brainwashing them to marry them off to jihadists," he said. "They call them to help out as nurses, help out the wounded -- but the real catch is they will be sexually exploited." 
 
 While the jihadists may see fighting as a path to paradise, Bihi said the only thing young people who take that path will face is disappointment, possibly even death. 
 
 "What will not change is the pain and agony and suffering of the parents," he lamented. 
 
 Without the resources to create jobs, Bihi believes that disenchanted youths will continue to be vulnerable to Islamic extremists. That's why he's created a fund, and donations can be made here: http://www.gofundme.com/gofundthework 
 

– ISIS has stunned the world with its brutality and rapid advance in recent months—and the publicity has also attracted more foreign fighters, including around a dozen Americans that US intelligence services have been able to identify, officials say. The recruits—who seem to be getting younger—see the militants as "the true jihad" because they have seized territory and are trying to establish an Islamic state, a senior official tells the New York Times: "They're saying: 'Look at what we are doing, what we're accomplishing. We're the new face. We're not just talking about it. We're doing it.'" Officials say more than 100 Americans have fought with assorted groups in Syria in the last three years and they have been identified through intelligence, including social media postings—but authorities often don't become aware of their presence until well after they've arrived in the country. That was the case with Douglas McCain, a former Minneapolis-area resident who died over the weekend while fighting for ISIS. A second American from the area has now been identified as having died in the same battle, according to KMSP. Abdirahmaan Muhumed was a father of nine who went to high school in Minneapolis, according to an MPR report from June on local Somali-Americans who have joined the Syria conflict. (Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan, who is on military death row, has written to ISIS asking to become a citizen.)