Jim415
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Dec 13, 2013
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- 383
The children who join the Cubs... and learn to kill people: Al-Qa’ida-led factions in Syria are training boys as young as 10 to become rebel fighters
UN agencies and human rights groups have accused multiple factions in the country of recruiting children for military roles, including actual combat
A photograph of the recruits without their hoods confirms that all of them are young boys. They are “Zarqawi’s Cubs,” the youth brigade of Syria’s most fearsome Islamist rebel group and the newest manifestations of al-Qa’ida’s deepening roots in rebel-controlled areas of the country.
Building on earlier efforts to expand their influence in Syrian schools, radical Islamists appear to be stepping up efforts to indoctrinate and train children, some as young as 10, according to independent experts.
The establishment of the Zarqawi’s Cubs camp –revealed in a video posted last month by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or Isis – is viewed as particularly worrisome because of the similarities to Iraq’s “Birds of Paradise.” That brigade was created a decade ago by the same terrorist group, in its earlier incarnation as al-Qa’ida in Iraq, to train children for military missions, including suicide bombings.
“This is the future threat,” said Steven Stalinsky, executive director of the Middle East Media Research Institute in Washington, that has tracked the exploitation of children by Syrian fighting groups over the past two years. “These are the children of al-Qa’ida.”
UN agencies and human rights groups have accused multiple Syrian factions – including secularist rebels and pro-government militias – of recruiting children for military roles ranging from scouting to actual combat.
Researchers from Human Rights Watch interviewed boys as young as 14 who were used to transport weapons or serve as lookouts. Even younger children were put to work loading bullets into magazines for assault rifles, said Sarah Margon, acting director of the group’s Washington office. “It’s something that children often do because their fingers are smaller,” she said.
A Syrian boy holds an AK-47 assault rifle in the majority-Kurdish Sheikh Maqsud district of Aleppo (Getty)
read the rest http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...g-as-10-to-become-rebel-fighters-9013864.html
UN agencies and human rights groups have accused multiple factions in the country of recruiting children for military roles, including actual combat
A photograph of the recruits without their hoods confirms that all of them are young boys. They are “Zarqawi’s Cubs,” the youth brigade of Syria’s most fearsome Islamist rebel group and the newest manifestations of al-Qa’ida’s deepening roots in rebel-controlled areas of the country.
Building on earlier efforts to expand their influence in Syrian schools, radical Islamists appear to be stepping up efforts to indoctrinate and train children, some as young as 10, according to independent experts.
The establishment of the Zarqawi’s Cubs camp –revealed in a video posted last month by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or Isis – is viewed as particularly worrisome because of the similarities to Iraq’s “Birds of Paradise.” That brigade was created a decade ago by the same terrorist group, in its earlier incarnation as al-Qa’ida in Iraq, to train children for military missions, including suicide bombings.
“This is the future threat,” said Steven Stalinsky, executive director of the Middle East Media Research Institute in Washington, that has tracked the exploitation of children by Syrian fighting groups over the past two years. “These are the children of al-Qa’ida.”
UN agencies and human rights groups have accused multiple Syrian factions – including secularist rebels and pro-government militias – of recruiting children for military roles ranging from scouting to actual combat.
Researchers from Human Rights Watch interviewed boys as young as 14 who were used to transport weapons or serve as lookouts. Even younger children were put to work loading bullets into magazines for assault rifles, said Sarah Margon, acting director of the group’s Washington office. “It’s something that children often do because their fingers are smaller,” she said.
read the rest http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...g-as-10-to-become-rebel-fighters-9013864.html
