Farhad Jabar was never seen wearing Islamic style clothing. Nor was he known to talk about religion. Yet the 15-year-old public high school student still became radicalised and committed the most violent of acts – murder.
But the lack of religiosity displayed by Jabar did not surprise one of the world's foremost terrorism experts, Bruce Hoffman, who says that religion doesn't seem to be playing a huge role in the current radicalisation of individuals.
Professor Hoffman, who is the director of the Centre for Security Studies and director of the security studies program at Georgetown University, believes there has been a deliberate twist in the recruitment of young people.
"It has long seemed to me that ISIS – and other groups, but ISIS in particular – are deliberately framing their message in a style reminiscent of the writer and thinker Frantz Fanon's clarion call to violence over half a century ago in his book The Wretched of the Earth, " he said.
Professor Hoffman, who has studied terrorism for almost 40 years, said that Fanon had "portrayed politically motivated violence as cleansing, cathartic and empowering: a self-satisfying blow struck against an oppressive, subjugating Western system".
He has referred to IS recruitment videos, like that featuring former Bankstown boy Abdullah Elmir, known as the Ginger Jihadi, that have included English and Australian accents and played up the invitation to fight and make history.
Professor Hoffman has said that a new generation of celebrity fighters is also being created, heralded and extolled.
"You mix a sense of purpose, empowerment, catharsis, and a sense of belonging to something larger than one's self with an impressionable teenager, fluent with social media and fuelled by rage that he or she is told is justified and can be usefully channelled into targeting the oppressor and, sadly, you have a 15-year-old intent on violence," he said.
"How we counter this, is a huge problem."
