International Business Times quotes Africa Center Director J. Peter Pham on how extremist groups are targeting Tunisia’s unemployed youth:
Terrorist groups such as al Qaeda and ISIS thrive amid poverty, as socioeconomic squalor facilitates their radicalization and recruitment efforts.
A high youth-unemployment rate “helps prepare an environment where it’s easier for that narrative to take root. It makes some of them more receptive,” said J. Peter Pham, Director of the Africa Center at the Atlantic Council, an international-affairs think tank based in Washington. “For the person looking for a job or struggling to make ends meet, macroeconomic theory doesn’t put bread on the table.”