One of the most atrocious crimes committed by ISIS is recruiting children and making them take part in the criminal acts and savage massacres the terrorist organization is committing against defenseless people in Syria and Iraq.
Children as young as 10 have described the heartbreakingly brutal military training they are forced to endure under ISIS.
While most youngsters their age are at school or playing with friends, these ‘Cubs of the Caliphate’ are learning how to fire assault rifles and become suicide bombers as part of Islamic State’s twisted campaign of evil. The terror group recruits boys as young as five in areas under its control to create the new generation of jihadist fighters and to disseminate their takfiri ideology and encourage children to perpetrate savage acts against their people under the cover of religion.
In its report published on June 24, the Human Rights Watch said that in Syria, ISIS specifically recruited children through free schooling campaigns that included weapons training, and have given them dangerous tasks, including suicide bombing missions.
The innocent children are forced to undergo brutal military training after being made to convert to ISIS’ twisted interpretation of Islam. Training included a 30-minute run a day and anyone who cannot run is punished by beating the soles of his feet with cudgels or being forced to crawl.
Military training included how to use the machine gun and undisciplined children were punished by leaving them under the sun or lashing them with a hose. A child kidnapped by ISIS says terrorist nicknamed ‘The Bulldozer’ hacked off his hand and foot.
A high-ranking United Nations (UN) official said the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group recruited more than 400 children during the first quarter of this year to carry out acts of terror in Syria.
A continuing feature of the crisis in Syria is the widespread recruitment and use of children by terrorist groups… ISIS (Daesh) and al-Nusra Front have used children to perpetrate acts of extreme violence.
Reports have been received of armed groups targeting children as young as seven years of age, and forcibly recruiting children through coercion of family and abductions.. Children have received military training in three Daesh terror bases in Aleppo, Deir ez-Zour as well as Raqqa.
Some videos released by Daesh terrorists show children or teenagers executing abducted civilians. Some of the children who get executed are reportedly those who refused to fight for the group.
ISIS jihadists are recruiting children as young as 10 years old to fight for an Islamic state in Iraq and Syria. There are many more who are being forced to fight for jihad.
The training is divided into two parts. In religious classes, they teach children their version of Islam, the extremist methods they follow, and the necessary foundations of creating an Islamic caliphate state – their ultimate goal. They also try to convince children of jihadist ideology. The camp’s “curriculum” also included combat training and lessons on how to use arms.
There are cases of children being kidnapped and brainwashed by ISIS. Abducted in May in the city of Aleppo, Syria, the fate of 133 of 159 teenagers remain uncertain.
Two of the boys who escaped told the media that ISIS was forcing the children to undergo lessons in Sharia and jihadist ideology. Jihadists beat children who misbehaved.
K.Q