The radicalisation programme is part of Isis’ plan to create the next
generation of extremists in the vast swathes of territory it controls
in northern Iraq and Syria.
According to interviews conducted by the Associated Press
with Yazidi teenagers who fled Isis training camps, when the group
overran Yazidi towns and villages last year, young boys were forced to
convert to Islam and were brainwashed into becoming jihadi fighters.
More
than 120 boys were believed to have been shown videos of beheadings and
told they would perform such tasks one day. In the meantime they were
ordered to practice technique and were each given a doll and a sword to
behead it with.
"Then they taught me how to hold the sword, and
they told me how to hit. They told me it was the head of the infidels,"
the boy, renamed Yahya by his Isis captors said.
Yahya and his
family were abducted when Isis seized the Iraqi town of Sulagh last
August and were taken to Raqqa in Syria, to be put in the Farouq
training camp for young boys.
He said he was given a new Muslim Arabic name to replace his Kurdish
one and was told that Yazidis were “dirty” and should be killed.
Yahya
spent five months at the camp, training for eight to 10 hours a day and
studying the Koran. He said they showed him how to shoot someone at
close range and that boys were forced to hit each other in some
exercises.
The group has reportedly “given up” on turning adults
into jihadis and have instead focused on turning out a new generation of
“Ashbal”, or “lion cubs” in Arabic.
Fighters go out into the
streets and befriend children with sweets and toys. They hold outdoor
events for children where they give them soft drinks and propaganda.
In an Isis video released last week, a boy was shown beheading a Syrian soldier under adult supervision.
Last month another video showed 25 child soldiers shooting 25 captured Syrian soldiers in the head.
According
to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, at least 1,100 Syrian
children under 17 have joined the terrorist group in the past year.
Around 52 are believed to have been killed in the fighting.
At least eight were suicide bombers.

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