Concerning Western Converts

By: American Decency Staff

 Last Wednesday, September 10, Shannon Conley, a 19-year-old from Colorado, plead guilty to conspiracy to support terrorists – namely the brutal organization known as ISIS that has lately been in the news for cutting off the heads of innocent civilians.

Sadly, Shannon is not the only headline-making American in support of ISIS lately, as the White House recently confirmed the death of Douglas McCain, a 33-year-old man who traveled to Syria to fight on the side of the brutal military force.

 And today, federal authorities arrested Mufid Elfgeeh of Rochester, New York – he is a naturalized citizen – for attempting to provide material support to ISIS.

From Fox News: "According to court documents seen by the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, Elfgeeh tried to raise money to enable a Yemeni man to join ISIS. At one point, Elfgeeh allegedly sent the man $600 to travel from Yemen to Syria. An FBI affidavit alleges that this past April, Elfgeeh traveled to Buffalo with an FBI informant to get a passport for the latter man. Elfgeeh suggested that ISIS would use the informant to "operate a cannon, act as a sniper and/or build bombs," the document claims. 

Elfgeeh was arrested this past May in the parking lot of a local Wal-Mart after taking delivery of two handguns equipped with silencers and ammunition. Elfgeeh had allegedly given the informant $1,050 in cash to purchase the handguns, which had been rendered inoperable. Federal authorities said he bought the weapons as part of a plan to kill members of the U.S. armed forces returning from war, as well as Shiites in the Rochester area."

There are some examples from the United States, but there are many others from European nations. In Austria, two young girls, aged 15 and 16, fled to Syria to marry ISIS fighters and are now, reportedly, pregnant. According to Newsweek, "In June, three militants involved in an ISIS propaganda video were identified as Cardiff students Reyaad Khan, 20, Nasser Muthana, also 20, and his younger brother Aseel, 17."

This image from ABC Newsclaims that over 100 hundred American citizens have sided with ISIS in the Syrian conflict, as well as hundreds from other Western nations, especially France and the U.K.

So, what is the big draw here? Why are citizens from nations with such rich Westernized, and often Christian, heritages flocking to stand with a barbaric, backward ideology that beheads or enslaves the people it doesn't agree with?

A large part of the answer can be chalked up to the influx of Muslim immigrants over the past decades. While the first generation may simply have been seeking a better life in the modern world, their children are often easily turned to radicalism, as Newsweek's France correspondent explains, “This is the ideology of young French Muslims from immigrant backgrounds, unemployed to the tune of 40%, who’ve been deluged by satellite TV and internet propaganda.”

In fact, 16% of France reportedly supports ISIS' cause.

The recently killed American, Douglas McCain had a similar story. McCain was part of a Somali community in St. Paul, Minnesota. And according to the New York Post, "This year, law enforcement officials say they learned of 15-20 men with connections to the Minnesota Somali community fighting for extremist groups in Syria."

There are also at least three young women missing from the community, and it is feared that they may have found their way to Syria as well.

Who's to blame? Their families and friends for leaving them vulnerable? Their government for not doing more to protect them from radical influence? Yes, I'm sure that both of those were a part of their twisted journeys to joining a terror network.

Here's something else to consider though. Before Shannon Conley was converted to Islam, engaged to a terrorist, and attempting to travel to Syria, she was a young lady searching for truth. Apparently in the midst of planning to leave, she even attended a Baptist church for a while.

The mother of Troy Kastigar, an American Muslim convert who traveled to Samalia in 2007 to fight with Al-Shabaab and also a friend of Douglas McCain, told the New York Daily News that she believed the pair was “sort of searching.”

“I think both of them had a really strong desire to be needed and [be] of value.”(Kastigar also died in combat.)

All these stories of converts going down this violent path start with a vulnerable kid trying to find the truth and where he/she fits into it. They turned to Islam for the same reason anyone turns to any religion – to find a purpose in life – and sadly they turned to Allah and were convinced that he demanded death.

This is where we all ought to be convicted. "How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in Him of whom they have never hear? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?" Romans 10:14

The testimony of Douglas McCain would have been very different if he had been led to Christ rather than Allah.

Richard Clarke, a former White House counterterrorism advisor said, “The appeal of jihad is it gives them purpose. It gives them a way out of a life that’s going nowhere. It gives them a higher calling.”

The same can be said of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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