The Islamic State has urged its European supporters “to stay at home to sow death and destruction” instead of traveling to Syria and Iraq, according to Belgium’s federal prosecutor Eric van der Sypt.
Belgian authorities have come across dozens of files in recent months, which indicate that foreign sympathizers no longer get called to fight in Syria. ISIS’s “new tactic” of mobilizing young people “causes serious concern,” according to van der Sypt.
“Young people are easily influenced and recruiters are not ignorant,” van der Sypt told Het Nieuwsblad in an interview published Wednesday. “Young people are indoctrinated via [social media like Telegram] and are prepared, sooner or later, to carry out an attack.”
Van der Sypt said ISIS takes advantage of the fact that young people are harder to keep track of and usually don’t get prosecuted even when they are caught.
“It’s not easy for the prosecutor to control them,” van der Sypt said. “And if you still manage to catch them, it is difficult to penalize minors.”
Another emerging trend Belgian authorities are concerned about is the recruitment of girls, usually around 16 or 17 years of age. Female-dominated terror cells were discovered in France and Morocco over the past few weeks.
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