Over the course of its ‘Caliphate’ project (2014–2017), the Islamic State group (IS) sought to indoctrinate, recruit and operationalise children to both populate its ‘state’ and swell its army. In order to design effective initiatives to rehabilitate and reintegrate children born and/or raised under IS rule,
the motivating factors behind their initial association with the group must be explored.

Unlike foreign minors radicalised to travel (or forcibly brought) to Iraq and Syria, localised recruitment of children within IS territory cannot be separated into delineated or sequential stages of ideological enticement and training. Instead, IS created a holistic and immersive strategy to radicalise minors,
combining formal and informal, direct and indirect, cooperative and coercive, and individual and systematic methods of simultaneous outreach and indoctrination.

Informed by official and unofficial IS propaganda, this merged radicalisation stage of IS’ initial interaction and indoctrination of children is characterised by six concurrent and interrelated
sub-categories or ‘pathways of influence’.