Recruitment of Women and Children to ISIS? 4

              ISIS is portraying itself as family friendly in new online recruitment efforts aimed at luring children and women, including spouses of prospective foreign fighters, to journey to the self-declared Islamic State. Note that the terrorist group’s sophisticated social media operations and other Internet sites - now available in 23 languages - are increasingly aimed at attracting younger recruits, forcing the FBI to consider non-custodial alternatives to deal with juveniles who heed its clarion call.
              In Chicago that 19-year-old Muhammad Hamza Khan of Bolingbrook, Illinois, was accompanied by his 17-year-old sister and 16-year-old brother last month when he was arrested at O’Hare International Airport as he allegedly attempted to fly to Syria to join ISIS. Khan has been charged with attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist group, but has not yet entered a plea. Neither of the younger teens have been charged.
              Three schoolgirls from Colorado - two Somali-Americans and a Sudanese immigrant ranging in age from 15 to 17 - were halted at the airport in Frankfurt, Germany, at the request of U.S. authorities. They, too, were on their way to Syria, where they planned to marry ISIS fighters.
                Federal law allows for the prosecution of minors as adults – in some cases as young as 13 -- if they are accused of a violent offense, using a firearm in committing a violent offense or felony drug trafficking or importation. But minors who do not meet those criteria – including the known cases involving minors intending to join ISIS – are only subject to a lesser charge of juvenile delinquency.