Nairobi (AFP) - Japanese activist Yusuke Nagai was a 19-year-old teenager when he dreamed of helping war-torn Somalia, and 15 years later he is running the only foreign-funded program to rehabilitate extremist Islamic fighters in the country into "peace agents."

Published on: 09/02/2026 - 18:05

Nagai launched a student program in 2011 with the aim of addressing the roots of the rebellion that drives young people to join the Al-Shabaab movement linked to Al Qaeda.

In 2013, he established a program to rehabilitate members of armed groups, which three years later, in cooperation with the Somali government, led to the reintegration of former members of Al-Shabaab into society.

Nagai says his teachers warned him, "It's very dangerous," and he responded by asking, "Okay, but what are you doing to help?"

Since its founding, his non-governmental organization, Accept International, has cooperated with about 1,700 imprisoned Al-Shabaab fighters and 250 defectors from its ranks, and has opened branches in Yemen, the Palestinian territories, Indonesia, and elsewhere.

With Washington and other donors reducing aid to Somalia, this organization has become the only foreign agency still active in the field of containing extremism.

"Agents of peace"

With funding from Japan, 17 people from the organization work in prisons and rehabilitation centers for dissidents in the capital, Mogadishu, as well as 15 others in a rehabilitation center in the city of Tusmarib in Gamludug state.

Working conditions can sometimes be harsh, employees may be threatened, and “the most extreme members of the movement may call them infidels and threaten to kill them,” Nagai says.

However, the high success rate motivates perseverance, he said, noting that some of those affiliated with the program became tailors, members of the traffic police, or even joined the national army.

Yusuke Nagai prefers not to use the term “deradicalization” and talk about “empowerment” instead. He is convinced that the rehabilitation program will turn fighters into "agents of peace."

The program extends for about a year and focuses on vocational training and basic education. A third of its members are illiterate, which makes them “more vulnerable to brainwashing.”

Among those who participated was Nour Ali (32 years old), a former fighter who now runs the organization’s program in prisons. He joined the Al-Shabaab movement when he was seventeen years old after government forces killed his brother. After a few months in the organization's ranks, he was arrested and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

In prison, Nagai met an influential religious man who told him, “Things get better if you forgive,” he said in a phone call from Mogadishu.

He added, "Young people need education and guidance," noting that many fighters are now "following my example to change the course of their lives."

Al-Shabaab still controls large areas of central Somalia, and is deeply rooted in society, which sometimes makes it difficult for its members to withdraw from its ranks.

Nagai recalls the example of a 21-year-old young man who fled the group before carrying out a suicide attack, and “he was very sociable and liked to talk to me.” However, Nagai later learned that he had rejoined the movement under pressure from his father.

"Loss of confidence"

Extremist rehabilitation initiatives that were previously at the core of what the West describes as the “war on terrorism” have been largely abandoned after donors lost confidence in the Somali government.

The United Nations supported reintegration programs in Somalia from 2013 to 2024, but stopped funding them in 2025. Its latest report in this regard stated, “The limited information that the United Nations and other international bodies have regarding basic aspects of the process has led to a loss of donor confidence.”

When the Somali government regains control of an area from Al-Shabaab, it often sends clerics to dismantle its extremist rhetoric.

However, its rehabilitation programs suffer from a severe lack of funding, according to Martine Zoiten, who prepared a report on the subject for the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank.

Rehabilitation centers also suffer from limited food and diseases are widespread, according to the researcher. The situation is exacerbated by corruption and internal conflict over power.

The Somali government did not respond to inquiries from Agence France-Presse.

"Closing the gaps"

Thus, Nagai and his non-governmental organization remain the only entity actively seeking to help former combatants.

Nagai says, "Some international organizations were helping them, but that ended and we are filling the gaps now."

Some are grateful to Nagai and his organization, such as Abdullah, who admitted that he joined the movement out of desperation after being promised five thousand dollars. He never received the money, and says he lived through "terrifying" times.

He points out that more fighters may be convinced of the usefulness of leaving the movement if centers like those in Tusmarib spread more widely. Since his defection from the movement in January, he has learned English and the craft of knitting.

He added, "Many want to defect, but they do not know where to go."

© 2026 AFP

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