Various terrorist and extremist groups in Syria have set up camps to train very young boys how to carry weapons.
US journalist Joby Warrick in a report from Syria said that young boys being trained at camps affiliated to the “Islam State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, or ISIS)”.
In his report under the title “Extremist factions in Syria touts training camp for boys”, Warrick said that hooded recruits in camouflage shoot at targets or march in formation under the black flag of the “ISIL”, adding that all of the trainees are young boys.
Warrick in his report mentioned that “the fighters appear quite small. The tallest are barely chest-high to their instructors, and the shorter ones wear ill-fitting uniforms and appear to struggle under the weight of their weapons. A photo of the recruits without their hoods confirms that all of them are young boys.
They are “Zarqawi’s Cubs,” the youth brigade of Syria’s most fearsome “rebel group” and one of the newest manifestations of al-Qaeda’s deepening roots in “rebel-controlled” sections of the country. Building on earlier efforts to expand their influence in Syrian schools, radicals appear to be stepping up efforts to indoctrinate and train children, some as young as 10, according to independent experts who have studied the phenomenon.
Source: Fars news
B.N