(NBC News) While the Kurds seek support in the fight against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, countries around the world are scrambling to keep young people from traveling there, but as Michael Holmes explains, a growing number of them are being recruited by extremists.
Teenage girls lured to Syria, boys in military fatigues learning to fight, these are the latest young victims of ISIS.
Experts say the terror group is increasingly reaching out online targeting children, especially young women like the three British teens who left for Syria.
Sasha Havlicek, CEO of Institute for Strategic Dialogue, We’re seeing young women from across western countries, both expressing their support for and migrating to Syria. Now, in totally unprecedented numbers and I would say this is the result really of an extremely sophisticated propaganda recruitment machinery that’s targeting young women very specifically.”
Metropolitan police say the missing girls may have been in contact with an ISIS blogger, possibly a young female recruit, also from Britain who says in one post quote you can find shampoos, soaps and other female necessities here, so do not stress if you think you will be experiencing some cavewoman life here, and not just teens, experts say ISIS continues to use young children as pawns in their propaganda war.
A newly released video shows boys in camouflage and ISIS bandanas, learning hand to hand combat, the terror group calls them their cubs of the caliphate.
Whether they’re from the west or a war-torn country like Syria, experts say young people can be vulnerable to the terror group’s message and false promises.
Yasmin Qureshi, member of British parliament, “They believe erroneously they are going out to help, help people and they think that ISIS, they don’t think ISIS is doing anything wrong because they think ISIS is helping people in their sort of you know warped thinking.”
That warped thinking is reinforced in ISIS-run schools, now operating in places like Raqqa in Syria.
Many fear this is where ISIS is raising a whole new generation of young jihadists.
U.S. Government officials say they’re still trying to figure out how to best counter the ISIS message online.
Jennifer Psaki, U.S. State Department spokesperson, There’s no question what we’re combating with Isil’s propaganda machine is something we’ve not seen before, it’s something we need to do a lot more work on, we are seeing 90,000 tweets a day that we’re combating.”
ISIS is not just luring children, it is also kidnapping them, a rights group says as many as 100 people from a Christian minority were abducted in Syria Tuesday, including a number of women and children.
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