“Teenagers and young adults are prime recruits for organizations like ISIS because they are still impressionable and easily persuaded.”
A South Carolina man was charged on Friday with attempting to board a plane to join ISIS. Zakaryia Abdin was picked up at the Charleston airport and charged in federal court with supporting a terrorist organization. This isn’t the first time Abdin has been linked to terrorist activities. In 2015, he was sentenced to up to five years in juvenile lockup for plotting to kill US soldiers and wage jihad overseas. Astonishingly, he wasn’t charged with a terrorism offense in that case instead, he pleaded guilty to a state gun charge. He was even released from juvenile detention early after he expressed remorse and proclaimed that he would operate as a changed person and had seen the error of his ways. He wanted to return to the nice life that he had.
Local authorities were outraged that he was paroled and expressed that Abdin was a threat to public safety and had not rejected radicalism. Of course, his defense has said that he was simply trying to visit his family in Syria and although he may have agreed to take part in terrorist activities, he was simply doing so to appease someone who wanted Abdin to do his bidding. Excuses as to why this man is linked to terrorism include family, death in the family, and stress.
I’m sorry, but there are plenty of coping mechanisms in this world that do not involve joining violent terrorist organizations. There isn’t a single justification for these types of radical islamic terrorists. To even entertain those who are known terrorists or harbor terrorist ideology makes a person guilty of the same in my opinion. Not reporting such things to the proper authorities makes a person guilty. His public defender goes on to call him a “soft-spoken kid” who didn’t appear to be loud or aggressive.
Well, no kidding! These cowards often fly under the radar and blend in with their surroundings to avoid detection. They are also masters of disguise who can be highly manipulative. They’re a dangerous group of people whom authorities have every right to be outraged. Teenagers and young adults are prime recruits for organizations like ISIS because they are still impressionable and easily persuaded. Recruiting young people is a tactic terrorists rely on not only within the United States, but on a global scale.
People like Zakaryia Abdin are incredibly dangerous because not only do they harbor the kind of hateful ideology that often cost human lives, but they are adept at masking their intentions. Hopefully this man is locked up for a very long time like he should have been following his first offense. Allowing him to be released without facing full ramifications could have dire results.
While there’s no way to tell with certainty that Abdin would have carried out acts of violence, we do know that he’s been arrested for crimes that should have at least garnered the appropriate attention. Red flags should have been raised.
Angelina Newsom is an OpsLens Contributor and U.S. Army Veteran. She has ten years experience in the military, including a deployment to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. She studies Criminal Justice and is still active within the military community.
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