ISIS' Cubs of the Caliphate Kill Syrian Soldiers in Video Message to Jews
A new video by the Islamic State terror group titled "To the Sons of Jews" released on Thursday shows six of its child soldiers murdering a group of captured Syrian security forces.
AFP reported that the video is part of the terror group's "Cubs of the Caliphate" program, and shows dozens of boys around 10 years of age studying Islamic texts and learning hand-to-hand combat.
Six of the young boys are then chosen by an instructor to execute a group of six Syrian security forces. Five of the men are shot to death, while one guard has his throat slit.
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The video was apparently filmed in Syria's eastern Deir Ezzor province.
The terror group has captured territory across Iraq and Syria, and has grown notorious for its large indoctrination camps, where children are taught extremist theology and trained for combat.
Back in March, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimated that IS recruited at least 400 minors from January through March, though the number of total child soldiers is much higher.
"I think to speak of children joining ISIS is not a good way to put it," Charlie Winter, researcher at the counter-extremism think tank Quilliam, told SOHR at the time.
"Even if they have the perception of choice, it's not choice. If you're a minor and being indoctrinated from a very young age, you don't have the power to make a serious choice. I think that it's certainly worth considering more robustly that people are being groomed."
IS children have been shown carrying out or aiding in executions in a number of previous propaganda videos by the militants as well, and reports have revealed that they are often taught that carrying out suicide attacks will be a "great honor."
Another group of young boys were shown executing 25 Syrian soldiers in July at the Roman amphitheater in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, one of the largest massacres carried out by IS children yet.
Steve Emerson, the executive director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, said back in June:
"Indoctrinating kids with ISIS' fanaticism is not only the easiest population to indoctrinate but also produces new generations of ISIS believers and ultimately, at some point, fighters. This is the way you build a Caliphate."
