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They had only just started kindergarten when the then leader of the terrorist organization Islamic State (IS) declared a “caliphate” in parts of Syria and Iraq a good ten years ago. And when some declared IS defeated five years later after the military defeat in the last bastion in the town of Baghuz, they went to school in primary school. Now teenagers, they are one of the biggest concerns for European security services battling an apparent flare-up of Islamist terror in Europe.
The arrests of minors and young adults in Switzerland and Germany at Easter, which have now become known, are the latest – but probably not the last – symptom of a development that has been observed for several months: IS suspects are often, even if not exclusively, minors.
ISIS was never really gone
This means for law enforcement additional challenges, as the Swiss Federal Prosecutor explained just a few days ago.
It was also shown in the brutal knife attack on a Jewish man in Zurich: IS, its propaganda, and its supporters were never really gone. On the contrary: a new generation has clearly grown up. And not only in Afghanistan, Mali, Somalia or the internment camps in northern Syria – but also in the Soest district in North Rhine-Westphalia or in the canton of Schaffhausen.
Blaming “the internet” is too easy
This can be largely explained by social media. As in other areas of life, Tiktok, Instagram or Telegram chats are omnipresent for some young people. Dating, dancing, shopping, cooking – and for some, searching for answers. Love, life, religion. Intelligence services have long been talking about “influencer preachers”.
However, it would be too easy to place the blame solely on “the Internet”. Even ten years ago, when the last generation was radicalized with the war in Syria, online radicalization was often referred to – back then it was still Facebook and YouTube, where fighters from Europe described their supposedly heroic efforts and young women described their supposedly beautiful lives swarmed under the black banner of IS.
Young people obviously want to go one step further
Today we know, including from court cases, statements from returnees and scientific research: Yes, social media can accelerate radicalization processes, and today’s apps may do this even more intensively than back then. But it has also become clear that physical contacts are still important: colleagues, friends, sometimes imams. So it is not surprising that the two suspects from Schaffhausen also knew each other offline.
And as was shown in the attack in Zurich and also in several foiled attack plans abroad and now at home: Some of the younger generation are not content with likes and posts of IS propaganda, but obviously want to go one step further.