The War Nerd: How do you deal with wannabe jihadis? An upgrade to business class
New recruits, and those who have no useful military skills, are also the ones persuaded to make the ultimate sacrifice as suicide bombers.
Something many people don’t understand about this way of becoming a shahid (martyr) is that it’s the least prestigious, far less honored than death in combat. It’s the least useful recruits who get used as suicide bombers. That’s why Saudi boys are disproportionately represented among suicide bombers; they’re hard to train (as I can testify), not much good for more complex tasks. Almost half of suicide bombers to detonate in Iraq in the last two months have been Saudi.
.. Even when they’re alive and fighting in Syria, these guys are a huge asset to Western Intelligence, because they make an effective camouflage for the real double agents already in place there. You can safely assume that a big fraction of the men fighting with Islamic State are double agents reporting to one or more of the major Western intelligence agencies, covertly photographing and DNA-typing their comrades for future reference.