Hundreds of Syria Children Turn to Militants in ISIL Camps, Pregnant Women New Targets for Snipers

“Facebook” and “Twitter”, particularly pages linked to extremist and terrorist groups, were busy broadcasting pictures of the guerrilla camp established by the “Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant ” [ISIL] in Damascus’ Ghuota region to train children on the use of arms.

According to the terrorists’ pages, the ISIL dubbed the camp as “The Cubs of Zarqawi” in reference to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi , who formed al-Tawhid wal-Jihad in the 1990s.

In late 2004 he joined al-Qaeda, and pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden. After this al-Tawhid wal-Jihad became known as al-Qaeda in Iraq [AQI], and al-Zarqawi was given the al-Qaeda title, “Emir of al- Qaeda in the Country of Two Rivers”. Later, his group expanded its activities to Syria to become known as the “Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant “.

In the recent photos, it seems clear that some of the children were under the age of ten. They appear undergoing training sessions on weapons , while others appeared eating food in the camp . It also appears from the photos that the children were dressed military uniforms, prepared to suit their small bodies .

According to information covered by the extremist websites , the camp includes hundreds of children who do not know where they were brought. They even didn’t mention whether those children were from the families of terrorists or residents of the areas, in which terrorist gangs stationed in Damascus.

On another level, a British doctor told the Guardian daily that “snipers are deliberately shooting at pregnant women in Syria as they try to win packets of cigarettes for hitting their targets.”

David Nott, who recently spent five weeks as a volunteer surgeon in a hospital in Syria, said the wounds civilian victims of snipers suffered suggested the gunmen were picking different parts of the body to shoot at each day, and that sometimes it was the bellies of pregnant women selected.

“One day it would be shots to the groin. The next, it would only be the left chest,” he told The Times. “From the first patients that came in in the morning, you could almost tell what you would see for the rest of the day. It was a game. We heard the snipers were winning packets of cigarettes for hitting the correct number of targets.”