Islamic radicals making inroads?

In August, MSU student Jaelyn Young was sentenced to 12 years in prison for attempting to join the Islamic State. Her fiance was sentenced to eight years. The couple planned on claiming they were traveling on their honeymoon as a cover story. Young stole her mother’s credit card to pay for their airline tickets. They were arrested at the airport before boarding a flight to Istanbul.

In high school Young was a high achiever. She was an honors student, a cheerleader and a homecoming maid. One of her parents is a police officer (and former Navy reservist) and the other is a school administrator. Young converted to Islam and became radicalized while attending MSU.

After converting to Islam, she began distancing herself from family and friends and started expressing extremist views. She left a farewell letter to her family that said, “I found the contacts, made the arrangements, planned the departure. I am guilty of what you soon will find out.”

Young received the longer sentence because joining the Islamic State was her idea, her plan. She convinced her fiance, Muhammad Dakhlalla, to go with her. Dakhlalla was also a student at Mississippi State University.

Yes, this took place in Mississippi not Montana.

Living in Montana, it is easy to think of such things as always happening somewhere else. Somehow it seems safer here, but it shouldn’t.

Islam is already here. There are Muslim Brotherhood connected student associations where you send your kids to school. The University of Montana, Montana State University and Montana Tech all have Muslim Student Associations. So does Mississippi State University. It is the one thing they all have in common.

This may sound innocent enough, but these Muslim Student Associations fall under the umbrella of MSA National, which was formed by Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood students and was funded by the Saudi Muslim World League (the same Wahhabi-Islam-promoting journal that Huma Abedin worked for). Upon graduation, some of those students went on to form the Islamic Society of North America.

The Muslim Student Association chapters in Missoula, Bozeman and Butte may well be innocent today, but a New York Police Department study suggests they may be likely targets for Islamic extremist propaganda.

The NYPD study states, “Among the social networks of the local university population, there appears to be a growing trend of Salafi-based radicalization that has permeated some Muslim student associations. Extremists have used these university-based organizations as forums for the development and recruitment of likeminded individuals — providing a receptive platform for younger, American-born imams, to present a radical message in a way that resonates with the students.”

Information about most Muslim groups in Montana can be found on Facebook. The Islamic Center of Bozeman, which includes a mosque and the Montana State University Muslim Student Association (an off-campus facility). They can be found on-line at www.montanamuslims.org.

The Islamic Center of Bozeman website has a “useful links” page that includes Muslim Brotherhood legacy groups: the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) and the Muslim Students’ Association of U.S. and Canada (MSA National).

All of the aforementioned Muslim Brotherhood groups are skilled practitioners of “taqiyya,” lying to non-believers to further the cause of Islam. These groups are actively seeking to form your children’s opinion of the “peaceful religion” of Islam.

Publicly, the Muslim Student Associations soft-pedal the harsh, often violent requirements of Islamic law (sharia). Left unspoken is the ultimate goal of these Muslim Brotherhood spawned organizations: A global Islamic government with strictly enforced sharia law.

While headlines about jihadist attacks inspired (or conducted) by the Islamic State, and fears of terrorists hidden in the Syrian refugee program, draw our attention to the front, a Muslim Brotherhood network is slowly creeping in the back, targeting young minds at our nation’s universities.

If you have kids in college, talk to them about radical Islam. Don’t let someone from the Muslim Students Association get to them first.

Snyder is a resident of Kalispell.