ISIL abducts over 1,200 Iraqi kids in Mosul: Kurdish official

Members of the Takfiri ISIL militant group have abducted more than 1,200 children from various districts of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP)’s spokesman in Mosul, Saeed Mamouzini, said ISIL extremists have lately kidnapped 1,227 kids in multiple neighborhoods of the city, located some 400 kilometers (248 miles) north of the capital, Baghdad, Iraq’s al-Sumaria satellite TV network reported.

He added that the Takfiris have shifted the abductees to their training camps on the eastern outskirts of Mosul, where they are being forced to undergo training to carry out acts of terror.

Mamouzini further said that ISIL terrorists have also took into captivity scores of Mosul residents, who had protested against the abduction of the minors.

The report comes only days after Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said the ISIL is recruiting children from 100 countries to commit terrorist acts in the states, where the terrorist group is active.

“The exploitation of children for murder is a heinous crime,” he said on June 15.

The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in late March that the Takfiri ISIL militant group had recruited at least 400 children in conflict-hit Syria over the first quarter of this year.

The children, all aged under 18, were recruited mainly in the eastern Syrian cities of al-Mayadin and al-Bukamal near the border with Iraq.

It further said that ISIL preyed on the minors near schools, mosques and in public areas, where the extremists carry out executions, flagellation and brutal punishments on local residents.

ISIL launched an offensive in Iraq in June 2014, and took control of Mosul, before sweeping through parts of the country’s heartland. The terrorists had seized parts of neighboring Syria before beginning their terror operations in Iraq.

Iraqi soldiers, police units, Kurdish forces, and volunteer Shia and Sunni fighters have been engaged in joint operations to drive the terrorists out of the areas they have seized.