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| Shocking: Mohammed said young boys are being lashed with whips and forced to watch the executions of men and women. Above, a Syrian youngster, donning a balaclava, is trained how to use a rifle at an ISIS camp |
A
13-year-old survivor of ISIS children’s camp: Children made to witness ISIS’
beheadings, crucifixion and stonings in Syria
CNN Exclusive: A 13-year-old witness to ISIS’ beheadings, crucifixion in
Syria
By Raja Razek, Nick
Paton Walsh, and Nick Thompson, CNN
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
·
CNN interviews
13-year-old boy who went to ISIS camp for children in northern Syria
·
The children at the
camp witnessed lashings, stonings and crufixion, the boy says
·
The boy’s father was told he
would be beheaded if he didn’t allow his son to attend the camp`
(CNN) — The little boy
looks barely old enough to walk, let alone understand the dark world he’s now
inhabiting.
He should be toddling around a playground with his
friends. But instead, he wears a black balaclava, crouched down in a desolate
street with his tiny hands clenched around an AK-47.
He pulls the trigger and the recoil of the shot
knocks him back, his limbs unable to control the rifle. An adult takes the
weapon from the boy’s hands as he stands up and steps away, casting a blank
glance into the camera.
It’s just one of the many videos that ISIS —
the Sunni terror group that has declared an independent Islamic state
stretching from northern Syria to central Iraq — has produced to boast of its
youngest “recruits.”
And as the radical Islamist group strengthens its
hold on this huge swath of land in the heart of the Middle East, it is cramming
its warped ideas into minds that are often too young to understand.
Mohammed, whose name has been changed out of fears
for his safety, was one of them. He has now fled to safety in Turkey, but was
just 13 when ISIS said he should attend one of their children’s camps in
northern Syria.
“My friends and I were studying at the mosque, and
they taught us that we should enrol in jihad with the [Islamic State],”
Mohammed told CNN. “I wanted to go, but my father did not allow me to.”
When ISIS found out that Mohammed’s father had
prevented him from attending, the militants sent a patrol to their house.
“[They told me] ‘if you prevent Mohammed from
coming to the camp, we will cut off your head,'” his father, who declined to be
named for this story, told CNN.
So off Mohammed went to the camp.
 |
The little boy looks barely old enough to walk,
let alone understand the dark world he’s now inhabiting.
|
[Shocking: Mohammed said young boys are being lashed with whips and
forced to watch the executions of men and women. Above, a Syrian youngster,
donning a balaclava, is trained how to use a rifle at an ISIS camp]
“For 30 days we woke up and jogged, had breakfast,
then learned the Quran and the Hadith of the Prophet,” Mohammed says. “Then we
took courses on weapons, Kalashnikovs and other light military stuff.”
Some of the militants at the camp were kind, joking
and laughing with the younger recruits. Others made the boys watch hideous
things.
“They used to bring young [kids] to the camp to
lash them,” Mohammed says. “When we go to the mosque, they order us to come the
next day at a specific time and place to [watch] heads cut off, lashings or
stonings.”
“We saw a young man who did not fast for Ramadan,
so they crucified him for three days, and we saw a woman being stoned [to
death] because she committed adultery.”
Mohammed says he understood some of the lessons
taught at the camp — like the importance of prayer and fasting — but didn’t
understand words like “infidels,” and why he should fight them.
The boys would take oaths of allegiance to ISIS’
leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and were considered
ready to fight once they
completed the religious and military courses taught at the camp.
 |
| Terror group: A rising number of young Syrians are being recruited by the militant group for roles ranging from soldiers and snipers to stretcher bearers and suicide bombers. |
Mohammed’s father, terrified for his son, tried to
visit him several times, but was turned back by guards who told him that the
boy wasn’t there, or on patrol somewhere else.
“He is only a child, they might make him a suicide
bomber and [convince him] that will be in paradise and stuff like that,” he
said. Despite his fears, Mohammed’s father expressed doubt that the militants’
lessons would truly stick in his son’s mind.
“How can a child like that be convinced? Where is
the conviction in that? He is a child, it’s not possible,” he said. “He just
saw his friends and kids his age went to the camp, so he wanted to go with them
for entertainment. They thought war and guns were entertainment.”
Mohammed’s father was eventually able to pull him
out of the camp, and the family fled to Turkey.
Now Mohammed doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t
want to go back to school — he thinks he’s too old for that now — and thinks he
might like to learn the trade his father practiced before they were forced to
flee their home, fearful of what ISIS militants would make him do.
Mohammed says one of his friends at the camp has
been killed on the front lines of ISIS’ war with more moderate rebel groups
fighting to topple the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
“He was martyred in Deir Ezzor when he fought the
Free Syrian Army with ISIS,” Mohammed says. “He was my age, 13 or 14 years
old.”
 |
| Above, ISIS militants march in Syria |
ISIS may preach absolute fealty to Islam, but
Mohammed doesn’t recognize the militants’ message in his own understanding of
his religion.
“I love my religion because I am a Muslim,” he
said. “And I used to go with my father for the prayers before ISIS came. But my
father has taught me that religion is not about fighting, but it is about love
and forgiveness.”
Mohammed and his family are safe now. But as ISIS
spreads its tentacles across the region, an increasing number of Syrians have
nowhere to hide — and the group’s murderous drive to convert everyone they
encounter knows no age limits.
Related Posts:
https://themuslimissue.wordpress.com/2014/08/29/a-13-year-old-survivor-of-isis-childrens-camp-children-made-to-witness-isis-beheadings-crucifixion-and-stonings-in-syria/
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