On the surface, the cedar-riverside neighborhood near downtown Minneapolis seems like any other Midwestern community. But in recent weeks it has been the site of heightened activity by the FBI, local law enforcement and local leaders struggling to counter terrorist recruitment.
Minneapolis is home to the largest Somali population in the U.S., and in the past six years it has lost an estimated 25 to 40 young men to al-Shabab, the al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group that claimed responsibility for the Sept. 21 Westgate Mall attack in Nairobi. In the wake of that attack, Kenyan officials said intelligence suggested that two or three...