This week has seen three terror attacks in Europe. Hours after van killed 13 people and injured 100 in Las Ramblas, the seaside town of Cambrils was hit by second vehicle attack, leaving one dead and six injured. A day after the Barcelona attack, two people were murdered with a knife in Turku, Finland, with the attacker allegedly yelling “Allah-u-Akbar”.
One factor common amongst these attackers is their youth: the alleged offender in the Barcelona attack, Younes Abouyaaqoub, is 22 years old. The suspected terrorists shot dead by police in Cambrils were aged between 17 and 24. The Finnish terror suspect is an 18-year-old Moroccan. Closer to home, the Manchester Arena attacker was 22, and two of the 7/7 bombers were under the age of 20.
The vile actions of these attackers bear no relation to Islam, which is embraced by millions of people across Europe. But I frequently wonder why increasing numbers of young European Muslims are joining Isis. What allures these young people to abandon their relatively prosperous lives in a free society to join a vicious band of nihilists?
A profiling of these terrorists reveals that there are several factors that can turn a young person into a terrorist, and some of these factors are not exclusive to Muslims because Isis recruits are not Muslims only.
READ MORE HERE: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/barcelona-spain-terrorism-young-european-muslims-joining-isis-a7903026.html
