We now have a new record: last month Britain’s youngest terrorist was convicted. Hammaad Munshi was only 15 when he was recruited by the then 20 year-old Aabid Khan. Khan, according to the Guardian, had “links to proscribed terrorist groups” including al-Qaeda, and is believed to have visited a terrorist training camp in Pakistan.
A recent MI5 report confirmed what many scholars of terrorist and cultic groups have long known: there is no single, or simple, demographic or psychological profile of those likely to be recruited. Social psychologists such as Philip Zimbardo have for years argued that it is the strong situation of increasing isolation within closed, coercive groups that creates these dangerous behaviors. This is what is critical, not the particular psychology or disposition of the individual.
- The group is led by a charismatic and authoritarian leader
- It is isolating and has a closed, steeply hierarchical inner structure
- The group adheres to an absolute and exclusive belief system (a total ideology)
- Processes of coercive persuasion are used to isolate followers and control them through a combined dynamic of “love” and fear
- Followers are exploited
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