Two-thirds of IS-linked arrests in Europe over the past nine months have been of teenagers, according to an alarming new study, while experts warn of extremists targeting children on social media following the foiled attack on a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna.
Of the 58 European arrests linked to ISIS over the past nine months, 38 involved people between the ages of 13 and 19, according to a new study from King’s College reported by CNN.
If you add the Austrian suspects who planned to drive a car full of explosives to Swift’s Vienna shows – they were 17, 18 and 19 years old – the number of European teenagers recruited by the jihadist terrorist organization in just a few months is at least 41.
The at-risk youth are often contacted online by ISIS recruiters who radicalize them and incite them to commit mass acts of violence under their bloody flag, said study author Peter Neumann, who also noted that the number of attacks and planned attacks in Europe has quadrupled since 2022.
But ISIS is not only targeting young people in Europe. Citizens of all Western countries, including the USA, are being targeted on social media.
“There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that these are the preferred means and mechanisms for recruitment in the West, in Europe, but also in the United States, Canada, Australia and elsewhere,” Dr. Corri Zoli, research director at the Institute for Security Policy and Law at Syracuse University, told The Post.
Through platforms such as TikTok, Telegram, X and Facebook, ISIS recruiters connect with young people – often males – who are receptive to extremist views and exploit their insecurities and curiosity, Zoli explained.
“Everyone likes to recruit young people, especially young men, because there are development problems,” she said.
“Their brains aren’t fully developed until they’re 25 or so. They can make whimsical decisions. And young people in general tend to have a black-and-white view of the world.”
Although platforms like TikTok and Facebook generally monitor any content that directly mentions terrorist groups like ISIS, videos or groups on seemingly innocuous topics like Sharia law or other cultural issues can be a sufficient entry point for recruiters to identify targets.
“People also use wars and conflicts as a great tool for recruitment. I am absolutely convinced that the current Gaza war is proving to be a boon for recruiters,” Zoli said. “It’s these advocacy groups, social media groups and pages where people express their political outrage about conflict or war or something in the news.”
“These are entry points for young people in particular who are really upset about what is happening in a particular conflict scenario. They get drawn into an activist, political community that then has pretty deep roots and connections to actually extremist organizations.”
The problem has become so widespread in the U.S. that Congressmen August Plfuger (R-TX) and Jimmy Panetta (D-CA) last week proposed a bipartisan bill that would require the Department of Homeland Security to conduct annual reviews of platforms like TikTok for threats to terrorist group recruitment.
The teenagers suspected of being responsible for the Taylor Swift bombing were allegedly recruited by ISIS online, according to Austrian law enforcement authorities, with the intention of killing “as many people as possible” by driving a car filled with explosives into the crowd at one of the concerts for which they had recently been hired as security guards.
Her arrest took place on Wednesday – just one day before Swift’s first of three concerts in Vienna, which were expected to attract 195,000 people – which led to the cancellation of the concerts.
Chemicals and other technical equipment for making bombs were found in the house of the 19-year-old leader.
His lawyer later tried to downplay the threat, saying the teenager was merely “playing with ideas.”
A spokesperson for Meta, which owns Facebook, told the Post that a team of hundreds of specialists monitors the platform for terrorism-related content. He added that terror and hate groups are categorically banned from the platform and their content is removed as soon as it is discovered.
Neither TikTok nor Twitter responded to requests for comment.
