IS Teaches Children How to Do Beheadings

The Islamist group also recruits boys from among Sunni populations within its territory and in refugee camps, using gifts, threats, and brainwashing to draw the children in, even to the point that the kids subsequently turn on their parents.

According to the report, the trainings are part of ISIL’s efforts to create a new generation of terrorists.

On Thursday the group released a video showing a child soldier beheading a Syrian commander outside the city of Tadmur.

A separate propaganda video shared later in July showed a child soldier killing several prisoners by shooting them in the head as they begged for their lives at an Iraqi river.

The boys, some of them as young as 8, were reportedly shown beheading videos and then asked to decapitate dolls, at one of the training camps run by the militant group.

First, they had to practice technique. “I knew I wouldn’t be able to behead someone like that”. He said they showed him how to shoot someone at close range and that boys were forced to hit each other in some exercises.

Yahya was also made to fight his 10-year-old brother, whose tooth he knocked out with one punch.

Fighters go out into the streets and befriend children with candies and toys. “(The trainer) said that if I didn’t do it, he’d shoot me”, he said. His captor “said if I didn’t do it, he’d shoot me”, Yahya said, adding that “they… told us it would make us tougher”. Authorities there have fired the local police chief and three officers, while two others are being investigated, said senior Iraqi police officials speaking on condition of anonymity Sunday as they weren’t authorized to talk to journalists. “They beat us everywhere with their fists”.

Last week, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that more than 50 children fighting for the Islamic State group had died so far this year.

He and his brother escaped in March while the guards slept. “I was scared when I saw that”.

A suicide auto bombing in Iraq’s eastern Diyala province killed at least 80 people gathered at a marketplace to mark the end of the holy month of Ramadan on Friday.