Iain Edgar (Durham): Dreams of Islamic State. A report finds ISIS has recruited as many as 30,000 foreigners in the past year. Michael Weiss on how ISIS picks its suicide bombers: They come from Russia, France — even New Jersey — to end their lives for an “Islamic State”. Michael Petrou on how an America-loving country became a jihadi hub: Kosovo owes its existence to the West; its capital even has a statue of Bill Clinton — but even here, Islamic State is taking root. James Harkin on how ISIS uses disaffected Europeans to justify its message. Jihad and girl power: Katrin Bennhold on how ISIS lured 3 London teenagers. Chas Danner on how ISIS abducts, recruits, and trains children to become jihadists. Maya Wesby on the lost children of ISIS: The tragedy of child soldiers has existed for as long as war, but their use and exploitation by ISIS is without rival, at least in modern times — war makes victims of children, even those who survive.
The soul of a jihadist: Omer Aziz on the radical evil behind the terrorist attacks on Paris. The group that’s surprisingly prone to violent extremism: Politicians should take note — engineers are much more likely to become terrorists than members of other professions. Meet the oil engineer ISIS wanted to hire. ISIS at the Gyro King: When two young men were arrested en route to Syria, the Uzbeks of Brooklyn felt upset, maligned, and only a little sympathetic. Danielle Paquette on why young American women are joining ISIS: “They often appear to be typical teenagers”. An American family saved their son from joining the Islamic State — now he might go to prison.
What makes a terrorist? Deborah Pearlstein reviews Objective Troy: A Terrorist, a President, and the Rise of the Drone by Scott Shane. Scott Atran on the real power of ISIS: The West has failed utterly to understand the appeal of the ISIS narrative, much less to develop effective counternarratives. What I discovered from interviewing imprisoned ISIS fighters: Lydia Wilson on how they’re drawn to the movement for reasons that have little to do with belief in extremist Islam. Sarah Moroz on the woman who betrayed an ISIS chief: While investigating how radical Islamists recruit gullible young people online, Anne Erelle began a whirlwind Internet seduction of a top-ranking terrorist.
Confessions of an ISIS Spy: He joined the self-proclaimed Islamic State, trained jihadist infantry, and groomed foreign operatives, including a pair of Frenchmen — and now, Abu Khaled says he is ready to talk. Vera Mironova, Ahmet Mhidi and Sam Whitt on the jihadi who came in from the cold: What one man’s journey from member of the Islamic State’s feared intelligence service to disillusioned defector tells us about the brutal extremist group. Family influence is more important than peer groups in dampening a young person’s propensity toward becoming a terrorist, according to a new RAND Corporation study. To combat the lure of ISIL, the Muslim world needs its own Peace Corps.
