Brazilian terrorist recruits minors for the Islamic State

Between 2022 and 2023, a young Brazilian associated with the terrorist group Islamic State used online groups to recruit four teenagers from cities in the interior of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. According to information from Metrópoles, at least two of these minors under the age of 18 were already in an advanced stage of radicalization.

Known on social media as Mahmoud al-Brazili, Fábio Samuel da Costa Oliveira, 20, was arrested last year while trying to reach Africa to join the terrorists. In May of this year, he was sentenced to seven years in prison for terrorism and corruption of minors.

Messages on the Telegram app revealed plans for terrorist attacks in Brazil, instructions for making homemade bombs, extremist religious speeches and extremely violent videos.

Federal Police investigators discovered this ISIS cell in Brazil in 2022, after receiving an alert from the Moroccan intelligence service. The Brazilian embassy in Morocco was informed about an intercepted conversation from Mahmoud al-Brazili mentioning a possible attack on a Catholic church in Barbacena (MG), where Fábio Samuel lived with his grandmother.

The situation worsened when the FBI, the US federal police, contacted Brazilian investigators. A video on the encrypted storage service pCloud showed Fábio Samuel wearing a hood, answering a questionnaire from the terrorist group.

In the recording, Fábio Samuel claimed to have supporters and explained why the caliphate is true justice. He also mentioned that he was translating documents from the terrorist organization, having learned Arabic and English online. The Islamic State currently operates in northern Mozambique, where Portuguese is the official language.

Conversations on Telegram reveal how teenagers were indoctrinated and radicalized. Fábio Samuel selected young people from Quran study groups and invited them to a more restricted group, disguised with names such as “Chess Club” and “Geopolitical Studies”. In these groups, terrorist attacks in Brazil were discussed.

In a March 2022 message, one of the co-opted teens wrote about his dream of blowing up the Israeli consulate. Fábio Samuel then sent the teen bomb-making instructions and expressed interest in joining ISIS in Mozambique.

According to the PF investigation, Fábio instructed two teenagers, codenamed Hassan and Shams, to carry out a terrorist attack against a US representation in Brazil, if he was prevented from leaving the country or arrested. When he was arrested at Guarulhos Airport on June 11 of last year, Fábio Samuel asked to make a phone call and contacted one of these teenagers, possibly to carry out the plan.

The Islamic State’s recruitment of young people is not exclusive to Brazil. A study by French-Iranian sociologist Farhad Khosrokhavar estimated that 67% of the militants who joined ISIS in Syria and Iraq between 2012 and 2015 were between 14 and 25 years old.