ABSTRACT
If the terrorist population comprised a measurable and static number of peopleOsama bin Laden’s gang and the like-terrorism could probably be controlled, if not altogether eliminated, through a war of attrition. Members of terrorist groups could be picked off by counterterrorism strikes or they would eventually just fade away. Terrorist leaders recognize that and so understand that they must empha-
size recruiting to meet their long-term as well as short-term needs. They also know, as pragmatists, that young people in their ranks can have unique operational value. They often have no paper trail of travel, arrests, or other personal history that might alert security services to their potential roles in terrorist activity. They can be used for everything from messengers to suicide bombers. Away from the battlefield, Internet-savvy teenagers have been given substantial responsibilities in designing terrorist organizations’ online operations. These young people may be motivated by ingenuous idealism or religious
devotion, but they may also be acting out a fantasy of adventure without fully realizing the harm they might do to others and to themselves. Sometimes their poverty and desperate circumstances are taken advantage of by recruiters, and they become the youngest mercenaries. More than 300,000 boys and girls under age 18 are estimated to be serving as combatants in almost 75 percent of the world’s conflicts. In 80 percent of these wars, there are child fighters under age 15, and in 18 percent, fighters less than 12 years old. Terrorist organizations are well aware that young people constitute an easy-to-reach, easy-to-recruit supply of personnel.1
