It's no longer shocking to hear that young men and women raised in the West have left the comforts of home for the turmoil of Iraq and Syria, eager to fight on behalf of Islamic State. But still we can't understand why they do it, much less figure out how to dissuade them.
Ask any expert in the field, and you're likely to get a long disquisition on the various profiles of foreign fighters. Some are from poor suburbs; some are from middle-class families. Some are converts; some are born Muslim. Some come from broken homes; some come from intact families.