The latest video released by ISIS shows how the extremists are now using children as props in their execution.
In the video, 8 Shiite victims of the extremist are seen to be executed after they have been blindfolded and led to a Syrian field by the children.
The execution takes place shortly after the children hand over the eight victims to the adult jihadists who then force the victims to kneel down and finally behead them.
The execution of the 8 Shiite Muslims which took place in the central Syrian province of Hama in the presence of armed teenage boys comes days after the extremist further condemned the kind of Syrian support towards President Bashar al-Assad.
In the video, a voice from one of the executioners referred to the victims as “impure infidels”, to somehow insult the Shiite Muslims in Syria. The voice further adds that the constant fight against ISIS is only making the group stronger and not weaker as it is depicted.
Sources have confirmed that the video is authentic and one of the 8 Shiite victims could be Younes Hujairi.
The man was reportedly kidnapped sometime in January 2015 from his hometown of Arsal near the Syrian border and has been a hostage to date-when the video was released.
A number of children have been initiated into the Islamic movement and some are as young as 10 years old. The children, who are then referred to as the “cubs of Baghdadi” have been indoctrinated to fight, kill and follow the group’s ideology.
Sometime in October 2014, one of the Twitter accounts linked to the Islamic group uploaded a picture of a young boy who was “martyred” while fighting for ISIS.
Several twitter accounts linked to the group have used the hash tag “shibal_alBaghdadi” to refer to “the cub of Baghdadi”.
While ISIS fighters commonly refer to themselves as lions of the Islamic State they refer to child soldiers as cubs of Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, the group’s self-proclaimed caliph (leader).
A report released by the United Nations on Iraq had revealed that the children conduct patrols for ISIS, arrest and guard prisoners, carry weapons and are forced to donate blood to help injured fighters.
