ABOUT OUR PROJECT

Welcome to our Project's Website

​In recent years, non-state violent extremist organizations (VEOs) have increasingly mobilized children into their ranks. In October 2013 over 100 Afghani and Pakistani children were kidnapped to be trained as suicide bombers. On 17 November 2013, Afghan police had pre-empted a 12-year old bomber in the Panjwai district of Kandahar; the child was wearing an explosive vest en route to a girls’ school. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS) trained young children for front line engagement as ‘Cubs of the Caliphate’ and children have moved from being bystanders to fully engaged militants on the front lines.
Evidence of children’s mobilization into violent extremist groups has increased. Online videos extol the virtues of martyrdom to teens, and abundant television programming aimed at instilling the desire to be a shahid has spread throughout the Arab and Islamic world. Children’s soccer teams, streets, parks, and camps are named after suicide bombers. In diaspora communities, efforts at grooming the next generation of militants has been uncovered in the US and UK. Teen-aged girls have disappeared from London, France and Scandinavia to join ISIS in Raqqa as so called "Jihadi Brides."
This project is a 4-year program of basic research that will identify the specific processes and pathways of children’s mobilization into terrorist movements and create a model of children’s involvement in violent extremist organizations (VEOs). Specific detailed cases will be developed using primary and secondary data for Afghanistan, Pakistan, Israel/Palestine, Iraq, Syria and Somalia in conjunction with regional partners who will facilitate the collection of interview data by local social workers and therapists.
​The project will generate an empirically valid model that can explain children’s involvement in VEOs and inform practices, policies, training, and further research aimed at developing evidence-based interventions at multiple levels.
Some of the Project Findings have resulted in a new book by Cornell University Press (May 2019) entitled ​"Small Arms: Children and Terror."

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PI and Point of Contact: Mia Bloom (mbloom3@gsu.edu)