ISIL trains innocent child soldiers

The ISIL Takfiri militants have posted a new propaganda video online which shows young boys undergoing military training to become militants.

The footage, which emerged on YouTube and other sites on Monday, depicts three dozen boys learning martial arts, how to disarm or capture an enemy fighter, and how to bear brute force.

The video shows that physical abuse of children by their instructors is part of their training with an adult trainer punching and kicking boys in their sides, legs, and abdomens while they recoil.

The newly released footage came after its first part appeared online in October.

According to the descriptions of both videos, the training camps are located somewhere in Iraq’s northern Nineveh province, which borders Syria.

There have been reports about the presence of at least five youth training camps in the Syrian province of Raqqa and one specifically for children under 16 in the town of Tabqa.

On November 23, Laurent Chapuis, the UNICEF regional child protection adviser for the Middle East and North Africa, said that children as young as 10 years old are being used by the ISIL.

Citing hundreds of interviews with people who fled or are living in ISIL-controlled areas, a UN panel of experts, known as the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, also said that the Takfiri group “prioritizes children as a vehicle for ensuring long-term loyalty, adherence to their ideology and a cadre of devoted fighters that will see violence as a way of life.”