Austrian ISIS 'poster girl' reportedly beaten to death after trying to escape Syria

The Backwards Man wrote: »

You don't see many US Marine recruitment films showing them having to scrape a toddler's guts off a pavement either, in fairness.

So? They brainwash from the moment they start school and then recruit young and use them as canon fodder.... But they're "Heroes"

Galwayguy35 wrote: »

20 years ago before the internet there might have been a case for saying they did not know what they were getting into but now with so much information available and every teenager owning a laptop it just doesn't add up that they had no idea what ISIS was about.

That depends. Were they indoctrinated, perhaps, through a less radical group? At an even younger age? Just a thought, based on the video in the France thread, where the speaker initially joined a legal group, and moved up the "ranks" to more and more radical groups.

smash wrote: »

There's a lot of defending the girls age here. While I accept that she was brainwashed young, 17yr olds can join the US marines and people aren't up in arms over that.

I think it's dreadful, personally. Just as I think it's horrendous that certain armies deliberately recruit in underprivileged areas.

Shurimgreat wrote: »

Zero empathy for the two of them I'm afraid or for anyone male or female joining ISIS.

15/16 year olds are bordering on adulthood and far from being naïve children, they had a fair idea of what they were getting into.

I expect a similar fate for the 3 girls who left the UK. Anyone who rejects western civilisation to live in medieval squalor can't be the full shilling.

I also expect a similar fate for the 3 girls who left the UK.

15/16 year olds are naive enough, in that they depend on their own (limited) life experience to form judgements.
Again, though, the question remains.
At what age did these kids begin to be radicalised?
I find it hard to accept that they suddenly, over the course of a couple of months, rejected everything that they had ever known?

Maybe they did, I don't know, but my experience as a mother tells me that kids don't change that rapidly.....

kettlehead wrote: »

Www theatlantic com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/

It is easy for us to label ISIS as a cult as we do not understand the rationale behind their actions. But they are not a cult. Far from it. The link above is worth reading if you can get it working.

As for feeling sorry for this girl due to her age, she was with Daesh for quite some time. What do you think she was up to throughout that time? There are pictures of her having plenty of craic with the Ak. She wasn't over there making daisy chains and baking the lads cookies whilst they popped out for a spot of pillaging.

Agreed. But I have a sneaking suspicion, as stated above, that she was indoctrinated at an even younger age.

Let's face it, people don't turn into homicidal maniacs overnight. And there is no question but that "active" ISIS members are homicidal nutjobs.

So, the question is - At what age do Daesh begin indoctrinating kids?

I think this needs to be answered before we in the West can even think that we can combat the "home-grown" terrorists.

StewartGriffin wrote: »

In my opinion the reaction to this is a good example of the ingrained sexism in our culture. Similarly when the girls went to Syria from England and to an extent, the reaction to the death of the girl in the Paris flat with Abouooud.

The only reason most people view these incidents is tragic is because the subjects are women. And most people think women aren't fully capable of thinking for themselves or looking after themselves, bless them.

Write the same story but change the sex and see how many people call it such a tragic waste of youth.

Personally, I think it is a tragedy when young people throw their lives away, also a tragedy when they murder other people.

You may be right.
However, as a woman, I'm well aware that women are eminently capable of thinking for themselves.

On the other hand, it does make it harder to understand how these young girls became radicalised. It's not like they were heading into a womens Utopia, so why join?

Like you, though, I consider the death of any 16 or 17 year old as a tragic waste of youth.

It makes you wonder how ISIS gets anyone to join..... well, I wonder, anyway!

bucketybuck wrote: »

Nothing more patronising than this shit about 16/17 year olds just being these helpless little children with no ability for critical thinking. Its utter rubbish, they are kids but they aren't toddlers and they are well able to evaluate situations and make decisions. Maybe I am foolish to give people that age credit but so be it.

So, zero fucks given about anybody who decided to run off and join the genocidal terrorist group. And unlike one particular poster most of us know about ISIS for years now, their values and methods have been clear for a long long time. We live in an age where google is ubiquitous, nobody makes the conscious decision to move to a different country and join them without knowing who and what they are. So anybody who does make that decision? Fuck them, then, now and forevermore.

If you're talking about me, I've known about ISIS for a while, basically since they started making the news headlines more than AL Qaeda did.

However, I'm not a teenager.

I don't know about the teenagers you know - but the 15 and 16 year olds I know don't listen to the news.
When some news item gets a lot of coverage on facebook, my teenagers might ask me for some background, or historical detail.
Because it's a lot less effort to ask someone you trust, than to actually research the subject.

Now, a certain amount of my sympathy is undoubtedly because I have kids of a similar age, myself.
Note: I have zero sympathy for older members of Daesh. I hope it goes without saying that Daesh aims, let alone their methods, are totally contrary to everything I believe in.

A certain amount is also because I have sense enough to ask the question "What about the kids who don't ask their parents, but ask someone else they trust? What if that person is an evil, manipulative S.O.B?"

What if they were asking those questions 2, 3, or 4 years ago?

Did they still have the maturity to know what they were getting into?

I don't know anything about those two girls - but the figures being quoted in the news for young Europeans returning from Syria after being trained by Daesh seem rather high for all of them to have "natural" psychopathic tendencies.

So, I'll still ask:

What age were they when Daesh, on one of its affiliates made the first approach?

If they were 16, fair enough. They should have known better, though I would still argue that they didn't have the same level of sense as someone who was, say, 22 or 23.

Personally, I suspect they were initially approached a few years ago.

I also note that any suggestion that they could have been 12, or 13 when they first began to be radicalised doesn't seem to register.

It seems rational discussion, or attempts to understand with a view to stopping recruitment is interpreted as sympathy for Daesh.
Nothing could be further from the truth.