New terrorist group recruits 16-year-old street thugs: “They do it for a few hundred euros and don’t ask any questions”

“They are used once, paid out once, and then they are useless,” says terror expert Pieter Van Ostaeyen (KU Leuven) about the worrying rise of underage attackers. In Antwerp and Paris, 16-year-olds appear in terrorism investigations into the shadowy group HAYI, which recruits ‘volunteers’ for violent actions via social media. Are these teenagers the new soldiers of a holy war or simply the cheap victims of a cynical gig economy?

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