I recently wrote the article Psychology: Why Islam creates monsters. In it, I explain how Muslim terrorists are created by combining mind-numbing recitations of the Quran, including its many orders to kill and maim non-Muslims, with psychological traumatising. The BBC’s Peter Taylor’s excellent article on al-Shabaab’s Kenyan recruitment ‘pipeline’ gives a horrific example of how this is done in practise:
I interviewed two young Kenyan al-Shabab recruits who had travelled through a network such as this one to join al-Shabab in Somalia. They did not wish to be called by their real names.
They had been promised money for their families back home and a place in paradise as a reward for their commitment.
When they arrived in Somalia, their dreams of jihad and glory were shattered.
Ali said he was 13 or 14 when he travelled to Somalia. He described being forced to watch the beheading of a recruit who had tried to escape from the al-Shabab camp in Kismayo.
“His hands and legs were tied behind his back. They made him kneel down and then they took a very sharp knife, right in front of me, and slaughtered him.
“He was screaming, like an animal, the way a goat can be slaughtered.”
It was a shocking warning to others who might contemplate running away.
Ali was traumatised by what he saw and still has nightmares about the horror he witnessed.