I will make my body a bomb that will blast the flesh of Zionists, the sons of pigs and monkeys. I will tear their bodies into little pieces and cause them more pain than they will ever know.
—A., age eleven1
Terrorism, it is said, is the “weapon of the weak.” Thus, it should be no surprise that children also participate in this dark domain of modern warfare. As on the world’s battlefields, children are increasingly present in terrorist groups. Many of these groups have long had youth wings to provide broader support in the populace, but now these youths are being used in actual operations to strike at targets behind the battle lines. This is for the same fundamental reasons that children serve now on the battlefields: they offer terrorist group leaders cheap and easy recruits, and provide new options to strike at their foes.
With the United States now involved in a global war on terrorism, children’s role in this aspect of war should take on added importance to Americans. Captured al Qaeda training videos reveal young boys receiving instruction in the manufacture of bombs and the setting of explosive booby traps. The result is that at least six young boys between the ages of thirteen and sixteen have been captured by U.S. forces in the war on terrorism.2 They were housed in a special wing of the detainee facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, called “Camp Iguana.”3 In addition, several more in the sixteen-to-eighteen-year range are thought to be held in the regular facility for adult detainees at Camp X-Ray.
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of contemporary terrorism is the growth in suicide bombing over the last few years, particularly emanating from the Middle East. Here, too, children are present. Radical Islamic groups like Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas have recruited children as young as thirteen to be suicide bombers and children as young as eleven to smuggle explosives and weapons. At least twenty-nine suicide-bombing attacks have been carried out by youths since the fighting between the Israelis and Palestinians sparked up again in 2000.4 Perhaps the most tragic example was a semi-retarded sixteen-year-old whom Hamas convinced to strap himself with explosives. He was caught by Israeli police in the town of Nablus just before he was to blow himself up at a checkpoint.5
But Palestine is not the only locale in the Middle East to see this practice emerge. In Morocco, thirteen-year-old twin sisters, who had been recruited by al Qaeda–linked groups, were caught in summer 2003. They were in the process of trying to suicide-bomb a Western business and local government building.6 Likewise, U.S. Army intelligence reports claimed that in late summer 2003, the insurgent forces in Iraq began to copy this tactic and give young children explosive vests to suicide-bomb coalition forces.7
It is important to note, though, that neither terrorism nor children’s roles in it are a uniquely Muslim phenomenon. Just as there are a variety of terrorist groups across the world whose members represent nearly all religions, so, too, is there a broader set of terrorist groups that seek to mobilize children. For example, the Real IRA, a coalition of dissident IRA terrorists in Northern Ireland, began to recruit boys in the fourteen to sixteen-year-old range in the late 1990s.8 The youngest reported terrorist was a nine-year-old boy who was sent by the ELN in Colombia to bomb a polling station in 1997 (a ten-year-old was later used by the FARC to bomb a military checkpoint in 2003).9 Likewise, when Muslim terrorist groups began to use child suicide bombers, they were not actually breaking any new ground. Instead, they were following the lead of the Tamil LTTE in Sri Lanka, which has consistently been one of the most innovative terrorist groups. The LTTE, which has utilized suicide bombers to kill both the Indian prime minister and the Sri Lankan president, is a master at the technique. It even has manufactured specialized denim jackets designed to conceal explosives. Some are even tailored in smaller sizes for child suicide bombers.10
Terrorist groups choose to utilize children for reasons that mimic those of rebel groups. Children are a relatively low cost way to build their forces, as their youth brings certain distinct advantages to operations.
The thinking behind using children may have both tactical and strategic rationale. For example, the Real IRA began to pull in children at the low point of its recruiting efforts in the late 1990s. The group faced opposition from other competing Irish nationalist groups and thus had a strategic rationale to expand its recruiting base. Additionally, many of its activists were also well known to the British authorities. The recruitment of young “clean skins” (as they were called by British intelligence) was thus an operational response by the group as well. These boys had no police or intelligence records and allowed the group to raise its membership numbers with less fear of infiltration.11
Similarly, two factors have led Palestinian groups to use children during the intifada. The first was strategic, in that having children take part in the violence (whether it be burning tires or throwing Molotov cocktails) was a way to attract the television cameras needed to keep the Palestinian cause on the world’s screens. The second was tactical. Israeli troops had a standing order not to shoot live ammunition against children under the age of twelve. So Palestinian gunmen began to work in tandem with the children, using their efforts to draw out Israeli troops, as well as provide a screen for their sniping.12
This same rationale also holds for why groups recruit children for suicide bombing. Suicide bombing is an efficient method for weaker forces to strike at an otherwise well-prepared opposition. Even if they lack the technology for guided missiles or other “smart bombs,” the inclusion of the human element allows groups to create a thinking bomb that can adjust to changing circumstances. As one leader of Hamas commented, “We do not have tanks or rockets, but we have something superior—our exploding Islamic human bombs. In place of a nuclear arsenal, we are proud of our arsenal of believers.”13
By the standards of typical costs of guided weaponry, the human bomb is also stunningly cheap. All that is needed to make an effective bomb suit for the terrorist is a nine-volt battery, a light switch, a short cable, mercury (readily obtainable from thermometers), acetone, gunpowder, and some form of homemade shrapnel such as nails or screws. Palestinian experts note that the total cost of a typical operation is about $150, with the most expensive part often being the bus fare to get the bomber in place. Add in a young terrorist and the bomb is then able to kill or wound all individuals within a twenty-five- to fifty-meter (80 to 164 feet) radius.14
The suicide bomb also is an effective attempt to step around or wear down the common means of defense. Deterrence plans fail, as the terrorist doesn’t care about the consequences. Likewise, guards have greater difficulties in screening, particularly if the terrorist is willing to die and take the guard with him. By including children among the set of potential attackers, the scope of defenses must be even wider. As the mother of one suicide bomber in Palestine commented, “This is a girl who would never appear on a wanted list. She sat at home. She was not active in anything political. [Israeli president Ariel] Sharon can chase all the ones he says organize these operations, but he cannot chase away the will of young people to carry out these things.”15
Thus there is an additional, distinctly psychological element to using child terrorists. The use of suicide bombers spreads wider fear than conventional terrorism. It presents the image of an unbending foe who will seek victory at any cost, including its own destruction. A child in this role heightens the hysteria terrorists seek to cause. To put it another way, if even children are a potential threat, then everyone is.
While it is easy to see why terrorist group leaders would see the appeal of children as operatives, why children would join terrorist groups, and be willing to sacrifice their lives in suicide bomb attacks, is more complex. The information is far from complete, and certainly varies by case. There are, however, some common threads that lead children into this pernicious form of violence. As with conventional child soldiers, many of these factors center on the combination of youth’s inherent susceptibility to powerful influences and the harsh environments which can shape them.
The first factor that might lead children to join terrorist groups is the potential of religious motivation. While most religions are decidedly against suicide, they also tend to laud the concept of martyrdom, dying for one’s faith. This is particularly so in Islam, where the concept of jihad, a personal battle to improve one’s faith, has often been expanded by radicals to declare holy wars against other nonbelievers. Radical leaders frequently cite passages from the Koran that claim a shaheed, or martyr, will be immediately forgiven all his sins and even be married to seventy-two beautiful virgins in paradise. Additionally, martyrs are given the ability to admit seventy relatives to paradise, perhaps adding an element of motivation for family support of the faithful. For children who have known nothing but poverty and hopelessness, such visions for the future are highly enticing. As one Palestinian psychiatrist in Gaza noted, an important factor in suicide bombers is their sense of frustration with their surroundings, connected to the desire to go to heaven.16
However, it is noteworthy that the groups that use suicide attacks are by no means only radical, religiously motivated. As the appeal of the operations grew in Palestine, for example, Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which were both highly secular militant groups, adopted the tactics.17
There is also the potential of economic motivations. While the majority of terrorist group leaders, such as Osama bin Laden of al Qaeda and Carlos Castaño of the AUC, come from relatively privileged backgrounds, they often target the youngest and the very poorest for their foot soldiers.18 As one extremist leader in Pakistan explicitly notes, “We want their children.”19 The head of Laskar Jihad in Indonesia admits that he even likes to recruit “children as young as eight” to train in terrorist and suicide operations.20
The financial inducements that these groups are able to offer vary. One particularly powerful element for children is rewards that flow to the family. In this recruitment tactic, a group is able to promise poor youngsters that their family will be better taken care of in their absence. In Palestine, for example, suicide bombers’ families were offered up to $25,000 from the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein and by private Saudi donors to the “Martyr’s Fund.” The rate from Hamas was about $5,000, along with such staples as flour, sugar, and clothing.21 Other groups, such as the LTTE in Sri Lanka and the Jamiat Islami in Pakistan, move young suicide bombers’ families into nicer homes or provide them with first access to better jobs. Thus, their sacrifice is painted to the children as a means to be selfless and raise their family’s lot in life. To do otherwise, then, when there are no better options, can be spun as an act of selfishness on the child’s part.22 These offers particularly resound with children growing up in conflict zones and refugee camps, who can visualize no other way to help their families out of their fate.
The institutions that a child interacts with, most particularly educational, might also play a role. In a number of areas, militant groups run schools that are then used as recruiting and training grounds for future terrorists. For example, LTTE-run orphanages in Sri Lanka even have shrines set up to honor suicide bombers.23 In the border regions of Pakistan, approximately 15 percent of madrassahs provide some sort of training that prepares children for militant groups.24 In the occupied territories of Palestine, Hamas has set up a series of schools that are highly politicized, even down to the pre-school level. The walls in these schools are labeled with posters such as “The children of the kindergarten are the shaheeds of tomorrow”; similarly, classes teach hatred along with reading skills.25 As one Hamas leader, Sheikh Hasan Yusuf in Ramallah, commented of the bombers his group had trained, “We like to grow them from kindergarten through college.”26 One of his opponents, a leader in Shin Bet, the Israeli secret police, concurred. “You don’t start educating a shaheed at age 22. You start at kindergarten, so by the time he’s 22, he’s looking for an opportunity to sacrifice his life.”27
QUESTION: What do you feel when you pray [for the souls of the martyrs]?
SABRI: I feel the martyr is lucky because the angels usher him to his wedding in heaven.…
QUESTION: Is it different when the martyr is a child?
SABRI: Yes, it is. It’s hard to express it in words. There is no doubt that a child [martyr] suggests that the new generation will carry on the mission with determination. The younger the martyr—the greater and the more I respect him.…
QUESTION: Is this why the mothers cry with joy when they hear about their sons’ death?
SABRI: They willingly sacrifice their offspring for the sake of freedom. It is a great display of the power of belief. The mother is participating in the great reward of the Jihad to liberate Al-Aqsa.
—SHEIKH IKRIMI SABRI, the mufti of Jerusalem, appointed by the Palestinian Authority 28
Other related institutions with which children have a deep contact can also motivate. For example, the Palestinian Authority ran a series of summer camps in 2000 that had a distinctly violent aspect. More than 25,000 campers learned everything from infiltration techniques and assembling AK-47s to the art of ambushing units and kidnapping leaders.29
Social motivations may also play a powerful role in inducing children to join these groups, often with their parents’ approval. It is no coincidence that the majority of suicide bombings take place in what anthropologists call “shame societies.” In such settings, young people are taught from birth that the acquisition of honor and avoidance of shame are the critical motivators of behavior. These beliefs take on an added power in settings that entail humiliation and subservience. Any act of retaliation, even one that has no realistic chance of recompense, can still be interpreted as heroic and cancels out the shame. Violence thus becomes as what psychiatrist Franz Fanon described as a “cleansing force,” which releases youth to become fearless in their actions and use bloodshed to drive out their feelings of “inferiority,” “despair,” or “inaction.”30
This can take place at the level of the individual or family unit or at the greater societal level. For example, most believe that the young fifteen-year-old al Qaeda member who killed an American medic in Afghanistan was brought into the realm of terrorism by his family. Not only was his father a noted terrorist financier, but his two older brothers were also members of the organization. As one cleric who knew the family while they were in Canada noted, “Ahmed Khadr made his boys into his own image—a fanatic driven by hate for the West and wrong ideas of Islam.”31
My parents encouraged me to come here [to Najaf, site of battle against U.S. forces in summer 2004]. I would prefer to live and taste victory, but if not my death will be rewarded with spiritual gifts in heaven.
—M., age fourteen32
Palestinian society may be the best current example of how this individual-level phenomenon can build up to a broader national-level concern. In Gaza City, the heartland of Hamas, some 1.3 million refugees live in a 140-square-mile enclave of semi-permanent shelters; 70 percent are unemployed and 80 percent live in abject poverty.33 Thus, the Israeli occupation, with its treatment of two generations of Palestinians as second-class refugees, followed by the near-complete decimation of Palestinian civil society in the violence over the last decade, has arguably backfired. Rather than a cowed Palestinian populace, its result has instead been broad youth rage expressing itself through the violence of the intifada and suicide bombers. Participating in violence has given many youths a sense of mission and control over their lives that they otherwise lacked while growing up in squalid, seemingly permanent refugee camps.34 As one Hamas leader notes, he finds no shortage of willing recruits for suicide operations from this pool. “Our biggest problem is the hordes of young men who beat on our doors, clamoring to be sent. It is difficult to select only a few. Those whom we turn away return again and again, pestering us, pleading to be accepted.”35
These social motivations can also be directed through the family. Some groups, such as the LTTE in Sri Lanka and the Jamiat Islami in Pakistan, give young suicide bombers’ families special recognition and honors in the community. Hamas in Palestine even celebrates the child’s “martyrdom” with festivities, treating the event as if it were a wedding. The death notice will take the form of a wedding announcement in the newspaper.36 Hundreds of guests congregate at the family’s house to offer congratulations. Sweet desserts and juices that the youth outlined in his will are served. These joyful scenes and the idea that they might achieve similar renown in their home village resonate to other potential recruits and their families. Many parents whose children have died in the operations take it as a point of pride. Mothers have been seen to dance with joy at the occasion.37 In turn, those parents who demur from providing their children can expect anything ranging from low-level harassment to condemnation in the local newspaper.38
Everyone treats me with more respect now that I have a martyred son. And when there is a martyr in the village, it encourages more children to join the jihad. It raises the spirit of the entire village.
—H., Kashmiri father39
The broader social environment can also help construct children’s identity in ways intended to reinforce these tendencies. For instance, if martyrdom is taught as being a good and honorable deed on national TV, then it is more likely to become an unfortunate part of a national consciousness. For example, Palestinian television once even had a Sesame Street–like television program called the Children’s Club. With its puppet shows, songs, and a Mickey Mouse character, the show definitively had a children’s audience in mind. However, the substance of it was very adult and pernicious, celebrating violence. Its shows even included children’s songs with such lyrics as “When I wander into Jerusalem, I will become a suicide bomber.”40
Likewise, many worry about the effect that the repeated images of civilian casualties in Iraq will have in the Islamic world. The concern is that repeated airings of civilian casualties in the Arab media will motivate Arab youngsters to join groups like al Qaeda that target the United States. As one seventeen-year-old in Syria noted of his response, “I was watching what was happening and I found myself cursing for the first time in my life. I felt I wanted to kill, not only curse.”42
The Songs of the Children’s Club
I finished practicing on the submachine gun of return.
I trained my friends from among the children and the youths,
We swore to take vengeful blood from our enemies for our killed and wounded.
When I wander into the entrance of Jerusalem I’ll turn into a martyr warrior,
In Battledress! In Battledress! In Battledress!
Thank you. Bravo, bravo, bravo.
On your life, I foresee my death and I rush towards it,
On your life, this is the death of a hero
and he who seeks the death of a martyr warrior this it
and I how I suffer the chains of the Jews.
The youth will be victorious
The youth will be victorious
We are ready with our guns
We are ready with our guns
Revolution until Victory
Revolution until Victory.41
As explored in Chapter 4, these influences of society, family, and so on may not be the only environmental factors that are sufficient to lead a child into terrorist activity or its support. Further personal experiences might play a role. These include the loss of a relative or friend, or some other form of direct suffering from violence. A common experience is jailing or brutalization from local security forces. Rather than deterring the kids from radicalization, it often tends to place them under the influence of the leaders of the radical groups while in custody. Such children then want to use violence even more when they get out and are better prepared to do so.
It is important to note that while all these factors may provide an explanation for why children might join a terrorist group, they do not combine to offer any sort of justification. Terrorism is typically a highly communitarian, unspontaneous enterprise. The suicide bomber is, as terrorism expert Walter Laquer describes, “only the last link in the chain.”43 Few terrorist instances, and no suicide bombings to date, are the result of freelancing individuals. Instead, most are the result of careful planning by groups that recruit, indoctrinate, and train specifically for the purpose of killing defenseless civilians. In some cases, these groups are doing so with children in mind as both perpetrators and potential victims, making their actions even more distasteful.
Thus, while the motivations may vary by individual recruit, the underlying success of any effort by terrorist groups to recruit children is dependent on their having a recruiting pool at hand. This pool is shaped by both its environment and the permissiveness that society may or may not give to the group to access it. When children are disillusioned, humiliated, lack proper schooling, and see themselves with no viable future, they are more likely to take refuge in radicalism. For many, then, even killing themselves becomes interpreted as relief from a present life that they see as intolerable. In turn, society’s willingness to sacrifice their youth may be generated by external political actions, such as an occupation, or by internal societal causes, such as an ethic of revenge.
In either case, the outcome is that children bear the costs of society’s failures. It is particularly disturbing that an increasing number of radical Muslim clerics preach that Islam permits suicide bombings and that the child bombers are martyrs to be lauded. Their view is that Islam may forbid suicide, but that these cases are different because of the adversary. As one cleric in Kashmir put it, “If Jihad is undertaken according to the strict interpretations of the Koran, suicide missions can be allowed if they offer military or strategic advantage to the Muslim army.”44 Such individuals are then described as not taking their own lives, but rather as sacrificing themselves for the good of the community. These are highly controversial assertions—and, many respected Muslim clerics and scholars would argue, lack any merit in religious texts.45 However, in the present context, such beliefs often go unchallenged and popular support for the practice is especially high among Muslim populations that see no other options available to them. For example, more than 70 percent of Palestinians approve of suicide bombings.46
That this practice is tolerated, let alone celebrated, is a terrible indictment of political and religious leaders in the region. As one Arab journalist put it, “What kind of independence is built on the blood of children while the leaders are safe and so are their children and grandchildren? Are only the miserable destined to die in the spring of their lives? Those children who are killed may not, in their short lives, have enjoyed a fresh piece of bread, sleeping in a warm bed, the happiness of putting on a new piece of clothes, or carrying books with no torn pages to school.”47
The training of children in terrorist actions varies as much as the techniques for recruitment. Indeed, the process is undergoing constant refinement.
It begins with the selection of children. In addition to their intelligence and enthusiasm, appearance in relation to potential targets is highly important. The ability to blend in or otherwise not raise suspicions among security forces allows the attackers to get closer to their targets. Thus, groups are careful to keep this in mind in selecting their operatives. For example, the LTTE uses cute young girls who are less likely to look suspect, while Palestinian Islamic Jihad often selects those who can pass for Israeli Jews.48
Once selected, the terrorist goes through an intense period of mental preparation. For suicide bombers, this often takes place in small cells made up of a training leader and two or three candidate bombers. This compartmentalization not only makes it harder for security forces to crack the organization, but also increases the intimacy and hold of the leader over the new recruits.49 The cells are often named for resounding events or subjects, to increase their impact on motivation. Hamas suicide bombing cells, for instance, are usually given a name taken from a Koranic text or resonating event in Islamic history. There is also the use of pledges among the new members. For example, some radical Islamic groups pledge the bayt al ridwan (named after the garden in Paradise), which seeks to lock the group further together in a shared fate.
The training also often includes the concentrated study of texts that reinforce the notion of sacrifice, as well as tasks of memorization and visualization. Other indoctrination strategies include carrying out reenactments of past successful operations. Repetition is used to drive points home. A focus is also made on the ease of death. Its pleasures are extolled in contrast to a future life of sadness, sickness, and continued humiliation. Hamas, for example, even has its recruits lie in empty graves, in order to see how “peaceful” death will be. In turn, LTTE survivors tell of training drills in which they would rehearse what they would do if captured or wounded. Their coaches instructed them on how to bite into the cyanide capsules that they would wear in necklaces during operations. As one fourteen-year-old trainee tells, “It mixes with our blood, and within one second, we die.”50
Rather than sadness at their coming fate, potential suicide bombers often describe this training and indoctrination as a period of great anticipation and happiness at their selection. As one young member of Hamas (who woke up from a coma a month after his attack) describes, “We were in a constant state of worship. We told each other that if the Israelis only knew how joyful we were they would whip us to death! Those were the happiest days of my life.”51 Trainers reinforce these feelings by extolling the coming triumph and celebration at their success. The candidates are even referred to by new honored titles, such as al shaheed al hayy (the living martyr), that afford them special status.
The final hours are often spent praying and making wills or farewell messages that are recorded on video or audiocassettes. These farewell videos and tapes not only are used for future recruiting, but also help make it harder for the bombers to back out, and thus risk public humiliation.52 In the LTTE, young suicide bombers are given the honor of spending their last meal in camp with the leader of the Tigers.53
Once trained and indoctrinated, the terrorists are sent into action. Again, the intersection of the group’s needs and the target’s responses determine their use. Some operations may be highly targeted, such as the LTTE strategy of aiming at individual leaders, and thus require complex planning. They may even involve layers of infiltration to get bombers as close to their targets as possible. Other operations, whose intent is simply to strike wider fear in the opposition’s public, may be aimed at collateral damage and thus less tightly designed. Hamas, for example, has a more ad hoc approach and typically lets the bomber choose the target. As one trainer describes, “We told them, ‘Blow yourselves up any place where there are people.’ They went wherever they knew to go.”54 These might include buses or former workplaces.
After the operation is carried out, groups are usually quick to claim credit. This is both an achievement of their wider goals to spread fear and an aid in their recruiting strategy. For example, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad typically notify the local media right after attacks and distribute copies of their attacker’s final video or audio message. This is followed up by extolling the action in local organizations affiliated with the group, such as mosques or schools. These groups also might praise the heroism of the youth through posted leaflets and graffiti (usually depicting the bomber in paradise under a flock of green birds—referring to a belief that the soul of a martyr is carried to Allah upon the wings of a green bird of paradise). Calendars are even distributed that have illustrations of the “martyr of the month.”
While there are multiple reasons for children to become involved in terrorist groups, none are simply coincidental or beyond the control of the groups themselves. Instead, they are usually the result of the combination of a harsh environment that leaves children with no good choices and a deliberate mobilization strategy by the group to pull children into terrorism. Sometimes this process is enabled by the parents’ approval. This may be the saddest aspect of children’s involvement in such groups. When a parent wishes that a child grow up to be a suicide bomber instead of a doctor or teacher and live to an old age, something is indeed wrong.
Chapter 8 will deal further with potential responses to deter and diminish the use of children by militant groups in general, but there are a few particular aspects in responding to the use of children as terrorists.
In attempting to defeat this practice, the key is to affect both the recruiting pool and the groups’ willingness and ability to access it. A focus should be made on the underlying problem of hopelessness that often leads children (and/or their parents) to believe that they have no better future than involvement in terrorism and a likely early death. An essential problem to deal with is the surroundings of violence, humiliation, and lack of opportunity that underlie this desperation. As Charles Stith, the former U.S. ambassador to Tanzania (who served in the wake of the 1998 al Qaeda attack there), notes, “People who have hope tend not to be inclined to strap 100 pounds of explosives on their bodies and go into a crowd and blow themselves up.”55
Many counter such claims by asserting that terrorism is an affair of the well-off elite from rich, stable countries; they usually point to those who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks as evidence. However, in doing so, they focus on the leadership (Osama bin Laden or Mohamed Atta) rather than the membership of the wider organization and the troops who make the operations possible. For instance, if we look at all of those who seized the planes on 9/11, prosperity was not one of their hallmarks. Indeed, a number of the hijackers were alghamdi—a name that indicates that they did not even have a respectable tribal origin, and thus were accorded a low social status in their countries. Equally, all came from countries with growing poverty and steeply declining standards of living, and had lessened job prospects. Moreover, while 9/11 shapes most Americans’ understanding of terrorism, it does represent the whole.
Focusing solely on the leadership of terrorist organizations also misses the larger socioeconomic context of radicalism and terrorism, as well as how and where terrorists thrive. Successful terrorist groups are based in and thrive in zones of chaos, poor governance, and lawlessness. Indeed, it is the context that surrounds, nurtures, and protects a movement like al Qaeda that makes it such a magnified and continuing threat compared to a group like Baader-Meinhof or the Oklahoma City bombers that withered on the vine. Likewise, effective extremist groups rely on a division of labor between young and uneducated “foot soldiers” and ideologically trained and well-funded elite operatives.56 Al Qaeda’s use of this structure was further illustrated by the 2003 Morocco bombings. The operatives in these attacks were young men, some as young as seventeen, who were recruited from local slums. In short, elites certainly play a role in terrorism, but it is a broader, communal affair.
Two particular issues must then be resolved to undercut the present terrorist threat. The first is to affect the context. The seemingly permanent status of conflict and its dispossessed refugees in a number of war zones (including Israel-Palestine and Kashmir) is an obvious driving force behind children’s participation in violence. This is heightened by failing educational systems and economic stagnation that hold back the realization of human potential across many regions. As Fadl Abu Hein, a psychology lecturer from Gaza, notes, “Martyrdom has become an ambition for our children. If they had a proper education in a normal environment, they won’t have looked for a value in death.”57
The second facet is to begin to undercut the institutions that assist terrorist groups in the mobilization and recruitment of children. Possible responses range from enlisting moderate religious leaders to speak out against the use of children, specifically by noting that the involvement of children in terrorism is counter to the true intent of religious texts, including the Koran, to establishing campaigns designed to reverse the social and economic rewards that accrue. Shutting down payment plans and punishing families for the actions of their children are other strategies. The overall key is to weaken the high regard that such terrorists are often given by society.
Finally, the cost-benefit analysis of terrorist groups must be altered. Presently, the downside for groups to use children is minimal. They have created a context in which neither local nor international support has been harmed by such a decision. Those that use children must be convinced that it is no longer in their best interest. When the institutions that influence children are controlled by groups that can be identified, such as the Palestinian Authority media, which extolled attacks by children, costs must be extracted. The programs must not only be shut down, but the group should also be made to fear the loss of something it values more, such as recognition by and interaction with international authorities. The ultimate intent of the pressure is to force the group into the realization that recruiting and using children for violence is not just an illegal and immoral strategy, but also a detraction from its long-term goals.