Century International: “The Mysterious Pipeline for ISIS Recruits from Northern Lebanon”

I have a new report out today for The Century Foundation's Century International, this time on how dozens of young men from Lebanon's Tripoli disappeared last year, apparently to join the Islamic State in Iraq.

https://tcf.org/content/report/the-mysterious-pipeline-for-isis-recruits-from-northern-lebanon/

Media reports earlier this year largely attributed these Tripoli youths’ enlistment in the Islamic State to poverty, and to Sunni marginalization and grievance; Lebanese officials told media that the young men had been lured with promises of dollar wages. But I think this narrative missed key aspects of the story, including how these men’s mobilization to Iraq really worked. It also reinforced Tripoli’s unfair reputation as an incubator for extremism.

What happened to these young Lebanese men seems less about why they decided to go to Iraq, and more about who took them there, and how. It's also about the particularities of these young men's backgrounds – something more specific than general Sunni grievance – that made them vulnerable to bad actors.

These young men’s recruitment by the Islamic State, properly understood, can help us better grasp why and how people are drawn into jihadist groups, and how to view a place like Tripoli.