A screenshot of an ISIS fighter taken from an official YouTube video. ISIS/YouTube
Max Fisher, VOX: Here's how a European ISIS recruit describes his murderous daily routine
It is difficult to imagine oneself in the shoes of one of the young men or women who leave their homes to fight, pillage, and murder on behalf of ISIS, and no less difficult to imagine the experience of ISIS's recruits from far-off Western Europe. Why go? Why give up often-comfortable lives in peaceful communities for the horrors of combat and most likely death far away in Syria or Iraq?
Journalist Ben Taub looked for answers to these questions in a lengthy and excellent New Yorker profile of 18-year-old Belgian ISIS recruit Jejoen Bontinck, who traveled to Syria for jihad before returning home. Although Bontinck is the star of the piece, another young Belgian jihadist who appears in it only briefly, Hakim Elouassaki, offers a much more illuminating look into what motivates ISIS's most enthusiastic recruits.
WNU Editor: Bullies with a gun and a license to kill or cause mayhem .... talk about a disturbing mix. This post also reveals how successful the Islamic State has been in its recruiting efforts .... they target those who are marginalized and give them what they can never have if they stay in the West .... a sense of power and recognition.