The study, entitled "Economic and Social Inclusion to Prevent Violent Extremism," surprisingly showed that those volunteering to be suicide bombers tended to be in the more educated group. The study focused chiefly on the socioeconomic factors that influence people to join the extremists. The study found that, contrary to widely-held belief, "poverty is not a driver of radicalization into violent extremism."
Whether from the Middle East, Africa or Europe, recruits from abroad tended to have several more years of education than violent extremists in their home countries. This was true almost without exception.
The report stated, "An important finding is that these individuals are far from being uneducated or illiterate. Most claim to have attended secondary school and a large fraction have gone on to study at university." It also said that Daesh "did not recruit its foreign workforce among the poor and less educated, but rather the opposite. Instead, the lack of economic inclusion seems to explain the extent of radicalization into violent extremism."
Researchers noted that Tunisia, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey were the top five suppliers of new recruits to the terrorists.
A leaked Daesh database shows that 25 percent of 3,800 recruits had a college education, and only 17 percent did not finish high school. Only Eastern European recruits were marginally beneath the average. Roughly 30 percent of potential Daesh members told the Iraq and Syria-based militants what duties they wanted to perform. One in nine sought to be suicide bombers, and they were just as educated as those interested in administrative positions. The study also indicated that less than 2 percent of the recruits were illiterate.
The leak, combined with data pulled from the World Values Survey and Gallup World Poll, gives insight on the citizenship, age, education status, religious knowledge and country of origin for recruits, as well as whether they had previous experience in jihadist activities.
The report concluded that "factors most strongly associated with foreign individuals’ joining Daesh have to do with a lack of economic and social inclusion in their country of residence. Promoting greater inclusion, therefore, could not only bring down the level of violent extremism, but could improve economic performance in the MENA [Middle East and North Africa] region, according to RT.
