development of isis
1. ISIS Develop Their Children Army
The kidnapping of 186 teenage boys in Syria on 30 May has gone largely unreported in the wider world, a curious omission given the outcry over the teenage girls in Nigeria. The abduction was no less sinister. The students needed to travel from the Kobani enclave on the Turkish border to Aleppo to take their exams, as required by Syria's education system. The journey is perilous, but they reached Aleppo without incident. On the way home, however, a convoy of about 10 minibuses containing 186 boys aged 14-16 was stopped and taken to a religious school in Minbej, for training in the Qur'an and jihad. The vast majority are still there.
"The food was good. At breakfast we had peas and sweet things," Mustafa says.
The Isis fighters were intimidating – and international. "I saw a lot of Russians, Chechens. Libyans, some Saudi Arabians and Syrians too," Mustafa says.
Desperate parents in Kobani have been left sitting and waiting. One man, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the information gap was agonising: there had been rumours that the boys had been beheaded, that they had been released, that there was a deal to swap them for Isis jihadists held by Kurdish fighters. And numerous variants in between.
"The food was good. At breakfast we had peas and sweet things," Mustafa says.
The Isis fighters were intimidating – and international. "I saw a lot of Russians, Chechens. Libyans, some Saudi Arabians and Syrians too," Mustafa says.
Desperate parents in Kobani have been left sitting and waiting. One man, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the information gap was agonising: there had been rumours that the boys had been beheaded, that they had been released, that there was a deal to swap them for Isis jihadists held by Kurdish fighters. And numerous variants in between.
2. ISIS Influence Fears the West
CAIRO — The British police arrest four men accused of plotting a bombing on the scale of the Mumbai hotel attack six years ago. The Australian authorities arrest a ring of 12 accused of plotting daring murders, including a public beheading.
In Canada, a gunman assaults the Parliament building and kills a soldier guarding a war memorial, and a motorist strikes two soldiers, killing one — in both cases, perpetrators with tenuous links to Islamist extremism.
And in New York City, a man wielding a hatchet attacks four police officers in Queens, slashing one in the head and another in the arm.
The series of episodes over just the last four weeks is raising new fears about the capacity of the extremists who call themselves the Islamic State to catalyze so-called lone-wolf attacks, conceived and carried out by individuals or small groups around the Western world who may have little or no connection to the Islamic State.
There is no evidence that any of the episodes were carried out by any centrally organized terror network. But in each case the violence was plotted or executed by individuals moved by the messages of Islamist extremists, and all took place in the one month since the Islamic State began exhorting Muslims in the West to commit such acts
In Canada, a gunman assaults the Parliament building and kills a soldier guarding a war memorial, and a motorist strikes two soldiers, killing one — in both cases, perpetrators with tenuous links to Islamist extremism.
And in New York City, a man wielding a hatchet attacks four police officers in Queens, slashing one in the head and another in the arm.
The series of episodes over just the last four weeks is raising new fears about the capacity of the extremists who call themselves the Islamic State to catalyze so-called lone-wolf attacks, conceived and carried out by individuals or small groups around the Western world who may have little or no connection to the Islamic State.
There is no evidence that any of the episodes were carried out by any centrally organized terror network. But in each case the violence was plotted or executed by individuals moved by the messages of Islamist extremists, and all took place in the one month since the Islamic State began exhorting Muslims in the West to commit such acts