ISIS has recruited ‘400 children’ in Syria since January

A human rights group has claimed that ISIS has recruited at least 400 children in Syria since the beginning of January. All of the recruits are under 18 years of age, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Tuesday.

The children are given the name “Cubs of the Caliphate” and have received military training and extremist indoctrination. All were recruited near schools, mosques and other public areas where ISIS carries out killings and brutal punishments on local people.

One such young boy appeared in a video early this month apparently shooting dead an Israeli Arab accused by ISIS of being a spy. A French police source said that the boy may be the half-brother of Mohamed Merah, who killed three soldiers, a rabbi and three Jewish children in Toulouse in 2012.

“They use children because it is easy to brainwash them,” said Rami Abdul-Rahman, head of the UK-based monitoring group “They can build these children into what they want, they stop them from going to school and send them to ISIS schools instead.”

ISIS declared a caliphate last year in territory it controls in Syria and Iraq and is being targeted by US-led air strikes in both countries. It has beheaded or shot dead Syrian civilians, combatants, foreign aid workers and journalists and has released videos appearing to show children witnessing or participating in some of the killings. The group persecutes people across sects and ethnicities who do not adhere to its ultra-extremist doctrine.

According to the observatory, ISIS may be recruiting children because it has been having difficulties recruiting adults since the start of the year, with only 120 joining its ranks, said Abdul-Rahman. This was partly due to tighter controls on the Turkish border, where foreign fighters tend to enter Syria, he pointed out.

The movement has encouraged parents to send children to training camps or has recruited them without their parents’ consent, often luring them with money, said the observatory, which tracks the conflict using sources on the ground.

At the training camps, the children learn to fire live ammunition, fight in battles and to drive, it alleged. ISIS also recruits children as informants and guards for its headquarters as well as welcoming children with birth defects into its ranks, the group added.