The Guardian has a fairly good article today about al-Qaida recruitment efforts in Turkey.
I have seen these people in action. They use a range of vile methods to fool young men, and sometimes women, in Turkey into going to Syria to join al-Qaida and al-Qaida related groups there, where they usually end up as cannon fodder.
Unfortunately these groups have had some success in Turkey and been able to recruit probably one or two thousand young people from Turkey during the past 30 months.
But I have also noticed that there has been a growing backlash against these groups' efforts as their true character has become more and more evident to those they are trying to fool.
The sons feared lost to al-Qaida in Syria
Parents in Turkish town of Adiyaman tell of anguish of searching for offspring recruited for jihad in neighbouring country
Fatih Yildiz never thought that one day he would have to plead with al-Qaida commander for the lives of his two sons. After a frantic week of searching for them in the blasted ruins of northern Syria, the retired Turkish government official was at his wit's end.
"I swear, if I had had a gun I would have shot that man," Yildiz told the Guardian.
The problem was that the commander – a fellow Turk from Trabzon on the Black Sea coast – could not understand why he wanted his sons back.
"They are here to be martyred," the jihadi leader yelled at Yildiz, who had tracked down his sons to a training camp near Aleppo. "Are you an infidel to try and take that from them? They will be rewarded in paradise."
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The article can be read here:
http://www.theguardian.com/...