Al-Madinah

As many as 759 Saudis from all over the Kingdom joined the terror group Daesh. On average, they were 24 years old which means that they grew up after the events of 9/11 and during the military and intellectual war against terrorism. Despite that, they were attracted to extremism and recruited in large numbers.

This is the result reached by Prince Dr. Abdullah Bin Khalid Bin Saud Al-Kabir, head of the security study unit at the Prince Faisal Center for Research and Islamic studies. He revealed the results of his studies recently in a lecture organized by the center under the title “Foreign Fighters in Leaked Daesh Documents”.

The study points out that these documents reveal that most foreign fighters who joined the terrorist organization had only a basic knowledge of Shariah studies. They represent a new generation that is more extreme and more receptive to absorbing such thoughts.

The study pointed out, as was published in Sabaq news website, that most of those who joined Daesh were extremist because of new and current circumstances. Wars, violence, instability and lack of security also helped in increasing this violent and extremist environment. The Internet and social media played an important role in mobilizing these youth to join Daesh.

This study was unique because it was based on Daesh documents and, therefore, the outcome and results are important and different as they can be used in the intellectual fight against extremism.

Sadly, in past years, many seminars have been held and many studies on terrorism, extremism and ways to fight them have been carried out. The recommendations are always theoretical and repetitive. They start and end with “our brainwashed youth”, while the real answer is never found.

Why are these terrorist groups able to penetrate the minds of our youth and destroy the morality, religion and human values that they once had? They are then controlled and changed into destructive tools that hate life and love the smell of death.

Fighting terrorism will not succeed unless all efforts are mobilized. It must be met with transparent dialogue and reasoning.

Twitter: @aaljamili