According to a report by Europe’s law enforcement agency, the terror group is indoctrinating youngsters to become ISIS fighters.
The report goes on to warn these minors “may pose a future security threat to member states” of the European Union.
According to an investigation conducted by the Quilliam Foundation this year, some 50 children from the UK are “growing up on terror.”
The report adds: “The future of children born and raised in Islamic State is a pertinent and pressing problem, requiring the immediate attention of the international community. There are currently 31,000 pregnant women within the ‘caliphate’. As many as 50 children from the United Kingdom are growing up on terror in Islamic State [Daesh / ISIS], and no prior research examines what will happen to them if they choose to return.”
ISIS supporters are known to use children in their videos and images to demonstrate how youngsters are being groomed with the terror group’s radical ideology.
Footage posted at the start of this year by ISIS supporters showed an 11-year-old boy kneeling down to kiss his father’s hand before blowing himself up in a truck laden with explosives.
Meanwhile, a four-year-old British boy dubbed ‘Jihadi Junior’ was filmed apparently detonating a bomb, which killed four prisoners in the group’s latest execution video.
The footage shows the young boy, Isa Dare, the son of Muslim convert Grace ‘Khadija’ Dare from south east London.
In its annual report on terrorism in the European Union, Europol added a significant percentage of all foreign terrorist travelers in Syria/Iraq are now female.
It says most of those who travel to Syria and Iraq marry fighters soon after arrival - or have already married fighters online before leaving - and give birth to children.
It added: “of particular concern are the children of foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs) who live with their parents in ISIS territory. One third of the minors that are children of Dutch women currently living in Syria/Iraq were born there. In their propaganda, ISIS has often shown that they train these minors to become the next generation of foreign terrorist fighters, which may pose a future security threat to Member States. Some returnees will perpetuate the terrorist threat to the EU via facilitation, fundraising, recruitment and radicalization activities. They may also serve as role models for future would-be violent terrorists.”
In March this year, ISIS released a new video allegedly showing an orphanage full of children being trained as the next generation of fighters.
The clip, labelled ‘Caring for Orphans within the Islamic State’ by the terror group, starts by showing tiny orphans playing before showing them being forced into stress positions and made to waddle around the area as they learn ‘combat’.
The Quilliam report also analysed propaganda released by Islamic State featuring children from September 2015 and found it depicted some 12 child executioners, and one child participating in a public execution.
The report also found child soldiers were generally coerced into the group by abduction, or pressured to join out of fear.
It adds: “The current generation of fighters sees children as better and more lethal fighters than themselves. Rather than being converted into radical ideologies, children have been indoctrinated into extreme values from birth or at a young age. The indoctrination that begins in schools intensifies in training camps, where children between the ages of 10 and 15 are instructed in shari’a, desensitized to violence, and are taught specific skills to best serve the state and take up the banner of jihad.”
Children must also undergo ‘Terror Training’, which includes shooting, weaponry and martial arts.
Girls, also known as the ‘pearls of the caliphate’, are veiled, hidden, confined to the home, and taught to look after husbands.
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