Those attacks are part of a troubling trend, according to some U.S. intelligence officers, in which young Afghanis radicalized by nearly nine years of war with Western forces are opting for suicide martyrdom rather than the traditional role of conventional fighting under a local warlord.

Terrorist groups from Pakistan and foreign fighters from Saudi Arabia, Palestine and elsewhere have sown a form of jihad that resonates among the younger generation, officials told The Washington Examiner.

The emerging Taliban generation is “more brutal than what we have seen in the past and it is something we are very concerned could get much worse,” said an Afghan official.

The youthful insurgents are “Taliban X, and we just don’t know what they will do in the future when their older commanders die off and they take their place,” said an American military official in Afghanistan.

In early July, International Security Assistance Forces issued a statement linking Taliban fighters to al Qaeda and a Pakistani Taliban leader.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/world/Taliban-X_-The-next-generation-of-terrorists-1008566-100291009.html#ixzz0wCNCINrN