IS extremists’ lasting grip is new hurdle for Europe, USA

PARIS / AP

The girl, speaking in the lilting accent of southern France, appeared in government ads describing how she was recruited by IS extremists during her quest for religion, then encouraged to quit school and go to Syria, and finally to plot a suicide attack against a synagogue at home.
“I have a hard time even admitting now that I was indoctrinated,” she says to the camera in the ad before breaking down, describing how she tried to recruit others.
The teen, known as Lea, was meant to be the poster child of a nascent program in France aimed at de-radicalizing young people to stem their flow to Syria. But the extremist rehab didn’t work. Six times she reconnected with the extremists, and six times she called her counselor in tears to apologize.
The seventh time, late in 2015, landed her in jail.
France’s effort is one of many around the world trying to break the hold Muslim radicals have on their recruits by figuring out what drew them to the groups in the first place. The United States has launched its first formal effort in Minnesota, on the orders of a federal judge. But it’s not clear how effective the programs can be in the long term. France alone has nearly 2,000 people like Lea — about 600 who have left for Syria, but far more who are involved in jihadi networks at home.
Across Europe, an estimated 5,000 people have joined extremist fighters in Syria, and about a third of them have returned. Most, experts and government officials say, will cause no harm.
Dounia Bouzar, who runs France’s extremist rehab program, works with more than 1,000 young people flagged as potential extremists. Lea’s story, she said, is more the rule than the exception. IS and Al Qaida extremists don’t break off contact just because someone is caught — and the young people themselves have a hard time pulling away from what she described as their “online tribe.”
“A young person who reconnects, that’s normal,” she said. ” On Monday, they come to bear witness and save others. On Wednesday, they denounce someone who wants to leave and say, ‘save him.’ And Friday, they re-connect and threaten your life.”
There is no reasoning with someone in the thrall of a extremist group, those who run the program say, so the recruits have to experience tangible doubts about the extremist promises they once believed. Bouzar said that can mean countering a message of anti-materialism by showing them the videos of fighters lounging in fancy villas or sporting watches with an IS logo. Or finding someone who has returned from Syria to explain that instead of offering humanitarian aid, the extremists are taking over entire villages, sometimes lacing them with explosives.
Only once doubts are seeded can young would-be extremists themselves reason their way back to their former selves, she said.