This paper investigates the effect of repression and education on individual motivation for insurgent mobilization. By using a unique individual-level dataset of Kurdish insurgents killed in action, I estimate the effect of declaration of emergency zones by Turkish government in 1987 and individual level educational attainment on mobilization of Kurdish Worker’s Party (PKK). The results suggest that there is a positive relationship between the number of individuals that joined the insurgency from a province and the provincial experience of emergency zones. However, individuals who experienced emergency zones took more time to look out for opportunities before joining the insurgency. Moreover, the results suggest that more educated individuals join the insurgency faster than their less educated counterparts. This suggests that educated people, with labor market skills to earn higher levels of income (Angrist and Krueger 1991), are more eager to join the insurgency. This paper contributes to the growing literature on individual-level motivation on insurgent mobilization, and while doing so it aims to explain patterns in the data that are not congruent with the opportunity cost theories of conflict.