Thursday, October 30, 2014

THESE KIDS WILL NEVER BE NORMAL: Inside the sickening school for mini-jihadis: Pictures show children as young as five getting combat and weapons training at ISIS military camp

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
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
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
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
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
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
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.

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