{"id":2075,"date":"2017-02-22T21:31:44","date_gmt":"2017-02-22T21:31:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/somalicentral.com\/news\/?p=2075"},"modified":"2017-07-01T21:43:32","modified_gmt":"2017-07-01T21:43:32","slug":"kansas-town-reels-months-after-foiled-mosque-bombing-im-still-scared","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/somalicentral.com\/news\/kansas-town-reels-months-after-foiled-mosque-bombing-im-still-scared\/","title":{"rendered":"Kansas town reels months after foiled mosque bombing: ‘I’m still scared’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Against the background of the 2016 election, a militia allegedly targeted Garden City\u2019s 500-strong Somali community. With anti-Muslim hate groups reportedly surging, residents seek healing \u2013 and prefer not to talk about Trump<\/em><\/p>\n

Ifra Ahmed lived most of her life on the run before finding unlikely sanctuary among the towering grain silos and carpet-flat fields of south-west Kansas.<\/p>\n

When she was two years old, her parents carried her from the port city of Kismayo in southern Somalia across the Kenyan border, as they fled the start of the brutal civil war. She languished in an arid refugee camp in Dadaab for two years, and then moved across Lake Victoria to another sprawling camp in southern Uganda, living among 60,000 other displaced people<\/a>. At school, in a class of 70 children, she excelled, learned English, and applied for permanent resettlement in the US. It took over a decade.<\/p>\n

Four years ago, she arrived in Garden City, a remote industrial farming town where the abundance of low-skilled jobs has long drawn refugees and migrants. It was the first place the 28-year-old felt confident calling home. Until the threat of terrible violence occurred once again.<\/p>\n

In October last year, federal prosecutors announced that three men affiliated with a loose national anti-government militia movement had been charged with plotting to blow up the small mosque frequented by Garden City\u2019s 500-strong Somali population.<\/p>\n

They had monitored apartment blocks, including Ahmed\u2019s, which were known to house refugees, stockpiled an arsenal of weapons, and planned to kill as many Muslims \u2013 \u201ccockroaches\u201d, as they called them \u2013 as they could by detonating explosives in four trucks laden with ammonium nitrate, according to an affidavit. The assault was due to take place on the day after the election and could have been the deadliest domestic terror attack since the Oklahoma bombing in 1995.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought of having to restart all over again,\u201d Ahmed said, sipping masala chai at her ground floor apartment daubed in pink and purple silks. \u201cI couldn\u2019t even imagine it because I have done it so many times.\u201d<\/p>\n

The incident received only fleeting national coverage, occurring less than a month before the presidential election. During a campaign which had already been dominated by Islamophobic slurs and fearmongering over the threats of terrorism, Donald Trump said nothing of the foiled plot. He and his aides have since gone on to perpetuate the falsehood of non-existent attacks since assuming office in order to justify a controversial travel ban imposed against seven Muslim-majority countries, including Somalia.<\/p>\n

But the plot did not occur in a vacuum.<\/p>\n

According to recent FBI statistics<\/a>, hate crimes against Muslims soared by 67% in 2015, marking the sharpest increase in targeted crimes against minority groups \u2013 and reaching the highest total, 257 incidents \u2013 since the year of the 9\/11 attacks. Analysts also argue<\/a> the plot was indicative of an alarming proliferation of anti-Muslim hate groups riding the wave of Trump\u2019s rhetoric. One of the accused plotters told the Guardian that the presidential election had \u201cencouraged\u201d his actions, despite protesting his innocence.<\/p>\n

Though the diverse community rallied around its refugees in the wake of the plot, this small county voted overwhelmingly in support of Trump<\/a>, to the dismay of many immigrants here.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is kind of the same fear when Donald Trump was elected and what happened in October,\u201d Ahmed said. But for her, as for many refugees, talking politics in the wake of Trump\u2019s victory was difficult: \u201cThe more you talk about politics, the more problems you ask for,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u2022\u2022<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only good Muslim is a dead Muslim,\u201d said Patrick Stein during a conversation with his alleged co-conspirators, Gavin Wright and Curtis Allen, in July 2016. Unbeknown to the group, they were joined by another member who had been secretly recording their activities for the FBI since February and would continue monitoring them until their arrest in October.<\/p>\n

At Wright and Allen\u2019s modular home business on a dusty patch of gravel in the outskirts of Liberal, Kansas, a town 60 miles from Garden City, the group \u2013 members of a statewide anti-government militia group named the Kansas Security Force (KSF) \u2013 had convened a meeting of their own sub-militia called \u201cthe Crusaders\u201d. They were plotting targets, according to an affidavit, and pulled up an image of Garden City on Google Maps, dropping pins on locations they labelled \u201ccockroaches\u201d. They had decided to target Muslims in response to the Orlando terror attack that occurred the month before, the affidavit said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we go on operations, there\u2019s no leaving anyone behind, even if it\u2019s a one-year old, I\u2019m serious,\u201d Stein continued. \u201cI guarantee if I go on a mission those little fuckers are going bye-bye.\u201d<\/p>\n

At their next meeting, in August, the group decided on their final target, a converted apartment that serves as a community mosque, embedded in the heart of a complex populated entirely by refugees. They began collecting the components to construct a number of large explosives, Stein was recorded testing automatic rifles he was supplied by undercover agents, and Allen collected piles of ammunition that, by the time of his arrest, weighed \u201cclose to a metric ton\u201d. They prepared a manifesto to be released at the time of the attack and carried out further reconnaissance trips to Garden City (during one previous trip in February, Stein had shouted \u201cfucking raghead bitches\u201d out of a car window towards a group of Somali women).<\/p>\n

The FBI eventually swooped on 11 October, after Allen\u2019s girlfriend reported him to local police for domestic assault and told officers she had seen him preparing a \u201cwhite powdery substance\u201d she believed to be explosives.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey had an intense hatred of Muslims,\u201d said a former senior member of the KSF who knew all three men and spoke to the Guardian on condition of anonymity. \u201cIt was just constant.\u201d<\/p>\n

The KSF formed in 2012 and had a membership of about 90 people by the time \u201cthe Crusaders\u201d were arrested. Most were from south and west Kansas and many were former military personnel. They mostly communicated over social media and so-called \u201cfield training\u201d was only occasional and drew small numbers of people.<\/p>\n

Stein, the source said, joined the militia around late 2013 and had previously been a member of a larger, more moderate group with which he became disenchanted. He was drawn to the KSF \u201cbecause it was more based in the constitution\u201d. He brought Wright into the group as well.<\/p>\n

Allen, who posted on social media about his support for Trump<\/a>, was temporarily ejected from the militia at the end of 2014 after allegations of domestic abuse, but was allowed to rejoin about six months later, the source said.<\/p>\n

In 2016, as the presidential race intensified, the three men\u2019s ardent Islamophobia became more intense and had spread to other members of the militia. \u201cThe group dynamic changed,\u201d said the source. \u201c[They] were saying Islam is a plague, we need to deal with it, we need to watch it, we need to keep an eye on it. Even I fell into it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stein, the source said, had made open comments on the group\u2019s Facebook chat that endorsed violence. The former militiaman estimated about 15 KSF members shared the plotters\u2019 racist views and \u201ctwo or three\u201d other KSF members attended meetings of this sub-militia, but none were aware of their plans to commit violence.<\/p>\n

The KSF believed they had come to the attention of the FBI in March after threatening an armed protest<\/a> outside a mosque in Wichita, the largest city in the state, against a visiting preacher they deemed an affiliate of the Palestinian fundamentalist group Hamas. But the Guardian was told by a separate source familiar with the investigation that agents had targeted the group well before this.<\/p>\n

All three men have pleaded not guilty to domestic terror charges and are expected to face trial in autumn this year.<\/p>\n

Lawyers for Allen and Stein declined to comment. In a statement to the Guardian through his lawyer, Wright said he refuted some claims made in the affidavit and had not joined the group until 2016, denied he hated Muslims and argued that he was entitled to engage in \u201csurvivalist activities and \u2018prepping\u2019\u201d for when \u201cshit hits the fan\u201d.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cMany 2016 candidates for political office in the United States encouraged these same views.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2016, according to research published by the anti-extremist not-for-profit group the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the number of anti-Muslim hate groups in the US almost tripled, increasing from 34 to 101. The research center partially attributed this extraordinary proliferation to Trump\u2019s \u201cincendiary rhetoric\u201d on the campaign trail.<\/p>\n

The KSF itself was a chapter within a broader national network of militias, the 3%ers, known for its overt Islamophobia. It was created in 2009 in response to Barack Obama\u2019s election victory and boasts around 400 members, in about seven states, said Chris Hill, a Georgia-based leader of the national movement. All ties to the KSF were cut off after the three men were arrested, and the Kansas chapter itself was shut down shortly after, Hill said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey went wrong when they decided to go offensive. We don\u2019t advocate violence on unarmed, innocent people,\u201d said Hill, a paralegal and Trump supporter<\/a> who also goes by the pseudonym \u201cBloodagent\u201d. \u201cWe have a political grievance, no doubt, that needs to be addressed, and we need to be vocal, but we are defensive in nature.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hill\u2019s Georgia chapter itself was also labelled a hate group by the SPLC after the group protested against the extension of a mosque in an Atlanta suburb, which he labelled a \u201cDisneyland for terrorists\u201d, and allegedly threatened local government officials in charge of planning permission in September last year.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u2022\u2022<\/p>\n

In the days after the three men were arrested, there was an outpouring of support from many in the Kansas community. Vigils and prayer services occurred in town, drawing people from across the partisan political divide. Immigrants and refugees from Africa, Latin America and south-east Asia have long been drawn to the city, attracted by the abundance of jobs at a large beef slaughterhouse on the outskirts of town. The city is now only 43% white. Local church groups run family outreach programs and free literacy courses for refugees. A new health clinic with translation services was opened last weekend, funded by donations.<\/p>\n

The support was also echoed among conservative politicians in the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was, frankly, shocked that it [domestic terrorism] would come home to roost in my town here in the midwest. We, our neighbors, our Somalis, our Vietnamese \u2026 here in Garden City are determined to get along,\u201d said Dr William Clifford, president of the Finney County Republican party. \u201cThe people here, I feel, are vetted, and they\u2019re working hard. They\u2019re contributing,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Days after the arrest, the Republican governor of Kansas, Sam Brownback<\/a>, said: \u201cThis sort of hate and violence doesn\u2019t have any place in this country, let alone our state.\u201d<\/p>\n

But there is a reticence among those in these conservative circles to draw even indirect links between the tenor of the election or local politics and the bomb plot itself.<\/p>\n

Months earlier, Brownback had withdrawn Kansas from the federal government\u2019s refugee resettlement program, citing widely discredited<\/a> national security concerns during the height of the Syrian refugee crisis. Civil liberty groups labelled the move a fearmongering<\/a> distraction technique.<\/p>\n

Clifford, a self-described moderate and the son of an Irish undocumented immigrant, defended the move as exercising a state\u2019s \u201cright to control borders\u201d.<\/p>\n

He acknowledged some in the Somali community could have felt \u201cquite threatened\u201d by Trump\u2019s campaign and the travel ban, but argued: \u201cWe\u2019re a country of laws, so that\u2019s what I support [the ban]. Mr Trump has promised to support the laws, to enforce the laws, which many of us didn\u2019t feel was being done previously.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the Africa Shop, one of the major Somali community hubs a short walk away from the mosque, CNN played in the background as a couple of men shot pool after clocking off from their shifts at the slaughterhouse, where about 5,000 cattle are killed each day.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Abdishakur Mohamed Noor shows a photo of children on his cellphone. He hopes they can join him in the US one day. Photograph: Laurence Mathieu-Leger for the Guardian<\/p><\/div>\n

Abdishakur Mohamed Noor, a homeless 55-year-old from Mogadishu, said he had been sleeping at the mosque at the time the men were arrested. \u201cI was very, very scared,\u201d he said, adding he believed he had seen some of the conspirators surveilling the community in the weeks before. Like Ifra Ahmed, he did not want to talk about Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

Aden Ibrahim Knaan, a community leader and owner of the store, received his US citizenship five years ago and is one of the few Somalis comfortable openly discussing politics.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt [Islamophobia] was something he was using in his campaign to get elected,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not right at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere have been many incidences inside America where you hear students getting killed, teachers getting killed, but they never talk about that and they don\u2019t label it as a terrorist act.\u201d<\/p>\n

Knaan smiled when the election result in Finney County was mentioned, but shared some of the optimism felt by conservatives, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cDonald Trump and the people are two separate entities,\u201d he said through a translator. \u201cTrump is an individual. The people here are a wide spectrum of diverse individuals. We are very happy with those who support us and we welcome all who were there for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ifra Ahmed also wants to become an American citizen. She is employed at the slaughterhouse, and has risen quickly through the ranks to become a supervisor. As she prepared for her shift, she spoke about her love of Oprah Winfrey and her desire to finish community college to qualify as a veterinarian.<\/p>\n

The beginning of February marked her fifth anniversary in the US, meaning she was able to apply for US citizenship. But she decided to withhold the application, fearful of what might happen next.<\/p>\n

She had planned to visit her mother, whom she has not seen in a decade, sometime in the fall of this year. But now, as the president plans to introduce another executive order targeting travel<\/a> from the same seven countries, she has left those plans on hold, too, worried she may not be allowed back into the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m still scared,\u201d she said. \u201cI want everything to calm down.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u2192\u00a0Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The foiled bomb plot in Kansas that didn\u2019t make Trump\u2019s terror list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2078,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[165,160,159],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diaspora","category-religion","category-us-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/somalicentral.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/somalicentral.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/somalicentral.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/somalicentral.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/somalicentral.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2075"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/somalicentral.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2077,"href":"http:\/\/somalicentral.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2075\/revisions\/2077"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/somalicentral.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/somalicentral.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/somalicentral.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/somalicentral.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}