Too young to prosecute: Islamic State recruits vulnerable teens

World

Too young to prosecute: Islamic State recruits vulnerable teens

The case of Aasha, 17, her 15-year-old sister, Mariam, and her 16-year-old friend, Leyla, illuminates how skillfully Islamic State militants prey on the young, targeting the vulnerabilities of high school kids. The children of immigrants, often caught between dueling cultures, can be especially susceptible, reports Yahoo News’ Liz Goodwin. Female IS recruiters often paint a rosy picture of marriage in the caliphate as a tactic to lure young girls to Syria. Meanwhile, if they get caught, as the Colorado teens did, the legal threshold for prosecuting juveniles in federal court is high and is discouraged by the Justice Department leadership. Although Aasha, Leyla and Mariam will not be prosecuted for trying to join IS because they are minors, the FBI officially classifies their case as still open.

There’s a sense that we just can’t go around locking up a whole bunch of teenagers that are not of age.

Karen Greenberg, the director of Fordham’s Center on National Security

The lives of the teenage girls were torn apart by the Islamic State. Growing up in Aurora, Colo., Aasha, Mariam and Leyla skipped school one Friday, took a cab to the airport and boarded the first flight on their lengthy itinerary to Syria. They had been communicating with IS recruiters and sympathizers for months using secret online identities. A day later, the girls were caught in Frankfurt, Germany, as they were changing planes. Because they were all under 18, they were returned to their parents and not charged with any crime. Their parents were given stern warnings to monitor and limit the girls’ Internet use.

It’s a war of words. … We have to go after and break this pattern of radicalization.

Admiral Bill Gortney, commander of U.S. Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command