Future generation of jihadists? ISIS trains child fighters to attack Europe
Baghdad: In an attempt to expand their caliphate, the dreaded Islamic State group is providing training to children of foreign militants in their territories in Syria and Iraq, said Europe's law enforcement agency.
According to a report in the Independent, ISIS has been portraying children as suicide bombers and terrorists in their recent propaganda videos.
This revelation comes in the wake of Islamic State's efforts to lure women into becoming jihadi brides and joining their fold. These recruiters often resort to social networking websites to execute their nefarious activities.
They try to convince women to join their fold with the promise of a ‘handsome’, ‘rich’ husband. These women are then married off to ISIS fighters who impregnate them and later make way for ISIS's future generation of terrorists.
In its statement, Europol, the law enforcement agency of Europe, said that these ISIS children are of 'particular concern', especially to the Western countries which have been the target of ISIS in the recent times.
Earlier this year, Quilliam, a UK-based think tank released a detailed report titled 'Children of Islamic State', which reveals how ISIS recruits children and then gives them jihad training by indoctrinating them at school, and sometimes at home too. These children are provided with rigorous training to become lethal fighters of the terror group. They are then infiltrated into the terror group's caliphates.
The report also focuses on how these jihadi children are inculcated with extremists values since their birth or when they are too small to distinguish between right and wrong. Tagged 'blank slate' by militants, these kids are provided with extreme martial arts training.
The report also stated how around 31,000 women were held captive by Islamic State group and are being used for breeding the next generation of terrorists.
"There's a systematic creation of the next generation of mujahideen - the next generation of fighters,” said Nikita Malik, a senior researcher at Quilliam, who was quoted in the report.
