Sickening
new images have emerged purporting to show young Syrian children being
trained at a military camp run by Islamic State terrorists.
The
photographs, understood to have been taken at a school near the
jihadis' de facto capital Raqqa, show children barely older than five
being taught basic combat and survival skills, learning how to use
enormous assault rifles, and being given lessons in extremist ideology.
The
disturbing images of the school, said to be named Al-Sharea, were
shared online by Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently - a small activist
collective which secretly documents the shocking violence and oppression
the terror group has brought to their home city.
Sickening: New
images have emerged purporting to show young Syrian children being
educated at a military camp run by Islamic State terrorists
Shock: The images show masked Syrian children under the age of 16 being trained to use assault rifles
According
to the activist group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, the
Al-Sharea school is specifically run to provide militant training to
young males under the age of 16.
Its
objective is understood to be to wildly distort the views of young
Raqqa residents, creating an entire generation for whom the idea of
Islamic extremism and acts of terrorism are second nature.
In
much the same way as the Nazi Germany preyed on its impressionable young
citizens with the creation of the Hitler Youth, ISIS has long groomed
children to take part in jihad.
The
practice was the subject of the second episode of VICE's groundbreaking
'Islamic State' documentary series, in which very young boys were seen
being asked whether they want to be a suicide bomber or a jihadist, and
were forced to repeat calls for the murder of Western 'infidels'.
Grooming: The images, taken at a school near ISIS' de facto capital Raqqa, show children barely older than five
Loss of innocence: A young boy smiles as he emerges from a tunnel on a terror training course at the Islamic State school
Disturbing: The images of the school,
said to be named Al-Sharea, were shared online by Raqqa is Being
Slaughtered Silently - a small anti-ISIS collective operating in the
terror group's de facto capital city
In
the VICE footage, ISIS' PR man Abu Moussa - who has since been killed -
describes how every male child is forced to attend Sharia camps to be
taught the militants' radical interpretation of Islam.
After
the age of 16 the boys are sent to a military camp, where they are
given intensive training in the art of warfare and prepared for possible
future as either front-line militia or suicide bombers.
The
images of the school in Raqqa emerged as a small group of Syrian rebels
entered the embattled border town of Kobane from Turkey on a mission
to help Kurdish fighters battling the Islamic State.
The
group of around 50 armed men are affiliated with the Free Syrian Army,
and are separate from the 150 Iraqi peshmerga fighters who are also en
route to Kobane.
Warped: The Al-Sharea school is specifically run to provide militant training to young males under the age of 16
Weapon: The school's objective is to
wildly distort the views of young Raqqa residents, creating an entire
generation for whom the idea of Islamic extremism and acts of terrorism
are second nature, activists say
Idriss
Nassan, a Kurdish official from Kobane, said the Free Syrian Army
fighters crossed into Kobane through the Mursitpinar border crossing in
Turkey.
Nassan, who spoke in Mursitpinar, said they travelled in cars but did not have more details.
The
Free Syrian Army is an umbrella group of mainstream rebels fighting to
topple Syrian President Bashar Assad. The political leadership of the
Western-backed Free Syrian Army is based in Turkey, where fighters often
seek respite from the fighting.
The
150 Iraqi peshmerga troops arrived in Turkey from Iraq early today and
were expected to cross into Syria later in the day. Their deployment
came after Ankara agreed to allow the peshmerga troops to cross into
Syria via Turkey.
No comments:
Post a Comment