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The child soldiers of the Islamic State

A 15-year-old boy is detained by Iraqi authorities in Kirkuk, Iraq.

He wore his Barcelona soccer jersey like a badge, sporting Lionel Messi’s name and number — only now, his jersey is torn in half. His torso is displayed and bomb wiring can be seen wrapped around him in footage caught by Kurdistan 24, a broadcast news station based out of Irbil, Iraq.

His arms are being held by police officers to keep him from detonating the bomb he’s wearing. He’s crying and seems completely distressed.

The teenage boy tells authorities he doesn’t know if his family is alive. He claims he was kidnapped by Islamic State militants who fed him hate— hate towards civilians who are against their extremist efforts.

One officer shouts at the boy during the bomb-detaching process and threatens him: “We will take you down and go to God together.”

Eventually, officers detach the bomb from the boy’s body. He timidly steps out of his suicide belt and into custody, and exclaims, “I’m sorry!” as he is dragged away and stuffed into a police truck.

This young boy is one of many who Islamic State leadership has taken under its maniacal wing. Intervention from western military forces is necessary in Islamic State-controlled areas in Northern Syria and Iraq, in order to prevent child soldiers of being recruited by the terrorist group.

The Islamic State group has a long-term goal for its recruitment of children in its radical jihadist battle. The terrorist organization aims to expand its caliphate for years to come by brainwashing children under 18 and convincing them to accept its doctrine of hate and destruction as their own.

Today’s child fighters are tomorrow’s adult terrorists. Not only must an end be put to the Islamic State’s child recruitment tactics but there is also a crucial need to prepare for the rehabilitation of youth militants who have escaped.

A 13-year-old Northern Syrian boy who was convinced to become a part of the terror organization’s efforts, but whose father was able to pull him from the recruitment camp, spoke to CNN about his experience as a youth militant and how he and his family had to flee to Turkey after.

“They used to bring young [kids] to the camp to lash them,” he told CNN. “When we go to the mosque, they order us to come the next day at a specific time and place to [watch] heads cut off, lashings or stonings.”

The Islamist group crams its warped ideas into minds that are too young to understand, and uses violent scare tactics to make its newly recruited members loyal to their cause.

“We saw a young man who did not fast for Ramadan, so they crucified him for three days, and we saw a woman being stoned [to death] because she committed adultery,” he continued.

The terrorist group calls these next generations of jihadists, the “cubs of the caliphate” and use attractive propaganda to convince Middle-Eastern youth to join.

However, the organization is not only interested in youth residing in the Middle East, they are constantly targeting American and European children, as well.

Islamic State leaders regularly put out an English-language propaganda magazine called, Dabiq, which aims to recruit jihadists from the West.

In one recent issue of the magazine the terror group encourages mothers to sacrifice their children to the jihadist cause— a cause that aims to eliminate all unbelievers of their version of Islam.

“As for you, O mother of lion cubs. … And what will make you know what the mother of lion cubs is? She is the teacher of generations and the producer of men,” a section of the magazine reads.

According to co-author of a 2016 Combating Terrorism Center report on children and youth in the Islamic State, Mia Bloom, there are at least 1,500 Islamic State child fighters.

The longer these fighters are raised by militants, the more difficult it will be to rehabilitate them if they are able to escape, as noted in the report.

If these child soldiers are not taken from these militants, they will grow up to be vicious, mindless killers with a diabolical goal to make the Islamic State an even more powerful force to be reckoned with.  

According to the CTC report, militants do not use child soldiers because they provide a unique advantage in combat or because they lack adult members. These child soldiers are not treated any different than their adult counterparts.

It is a necessity to bring to light the horror that these children are raised into.

Footage recorded by Islamic State members of little boys barely old enough to walk, holding and shooting AK-47 assault rifles is a terrible sight. Child soldiers shooting adults in the back of their heads is sickening. Children being kidnapped and having to wear suicide belts is something social media users cannot grow desensitized from watching.

The sanctity of children is completely being ignored in certain parts of the Middle East. If extensive military intervention isn’t taken now by western forces, pretty soon, children will be treated as hostile as adults across vast areas of the Middle East.

These children will be hurt by either militants trying to recruit or authoritative forces attempting to protect their country.

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