ISIL 'cubs' threaten region's future: Dar al-Ifta

Egypt's Dar al-Ifta Fatwa Observatory has issued a number of warnings pointing to the threat posed by the "Cubs of the Caliphate" , a programme through which the "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" (ISIL) trains children to fight.

In a series of online posts in late August, the observatory points to ISIL’s recruitment of children to carry out executions and suicide bombings, saying the group has targeted the young as they are easy to indoctrinate and manipulate.

In one post, which highlights ISIL's recruitment tactics, the observatory notes that ISIL is even using football tournaments to entice youth to join its ranks.

"As a result of the painful blows it was dealt by the international coalition, ISIL is in dire need of new recruits to make up for the huge losses it has suffered," said military analyst Maj. Gen. Abdul Karim Ahmed, a retired Egyptian army officer.

For this reason, he told Al-Mashareq, the group has sought to augment its ranks by taking advantage of women and children.

"With regard to the children, featuring them in one ISIL video after another in which they are shown carrying out executions or suicide bombings , has promotional purposes related to recruitment," he said.

Through its use of such videos, ISIL seeks to persuade children to join the group as fighters by sending them the message that "children are doing adult things", he said.

These videos also seek to weaken the morale of factions fighting ISIL by suggesting that child fighters are succeeding in killing their men, he said.

There are numerous "Cubs of the Caliphate" training camps in parts of Syria and Iraq controlled by ISIL, Ahmed said.

A significant number of the children of ISIL fighters are enrolled in these camps, he said, pointing out that training them to be fighters does not require a great deal of effort due to the environment in which they are being raised.

ISIL's recruitment of children is not new, he said. In August 2014, shortly after the group's inception, the Syrian Committee for Human Rights reported the group had recruited 800 children under the age 18 into its ranks in Syria.

"Assuming this figure is real and accurate, their numbers [must] have increased several-fold in the two years since," Ahmed said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported last September that 1,100 children were recruited as fighters between January and August 2015.

Sending children to commit suicide

"ISIL’s choice of children to carry out suicide attacks can be attributed not only to the shortfall in [fighters], but also to the fact that children are able to move around easily and inconspicuously," said Mazen Zaki, director of the media department at Egypt’s Ibn al-Waleed Centre for Studies and Field Research.

Children do not raise suspicions in the same way that adult men do, he told Diyaruna, which often enables them to circumvent security measures.

ISIL's "cubs" used to be given lower-level tasks, Zaki said, such as conducting surveillance, relaying information, transporting ammunition, refilling magazines with bullets and other logistical and security support tasks.

The increased use of children in "executions and suicide bombings constitutes a very serious threat", he said.

ISIL has used child bombers to target "family-oriented events, such as weddings, celebrations and family festivities where a lot of children will be present", Zaki said.

This was the case with the bombing of a wedding hall in Gaziantep , Turkey, where a Kurdish marriage celebration was under way, he said, and a similar October 3rd attack on a Kurdish wedding in the Syrian city of al-Hasakeh .

In a separate incident, Iraqi forces apprehended a child in the city of Kirkuk in August before he could blow himself up , he said.

Military unit comprised of children

ISIL has deployed a "military unit consisting of children" in its battles, Zaki said, as was the case in the Syrian city of Kobani, "where more than 30 corpses of ISIL child fighters were found".

This lays bare the group’s strategy of using children during military operations, he said.

Dar al-Ifta's warnings about the threats posed by the Cubs of the Caliphate and the group’s recruitment of children in general raises an alarm about the region's future, said Cairo University sociology professor Bassima Husni.

A child's brain soaks up the ideology with which it is imbued to a point where it stops accepting any new information, she told Al-Mashareq, with this information serving as the only reference point for the child's actions.

"Dar al-Ifta, through educational and religious institutions affiliated with it, has precise knowledge of a child's psyche and how to convey its teachings to him, and of the latent danger of terrorist teachings," she said.

"Thus, the warning also indicates the difficulty of addressing this problem in the future, meaning when these children grow older, because they are only taught the group’s criminal teachings," she said.

Husni highlighted the warning issued by Dar al-Ifta about "the group’s pursuit of children through sports, and football in particular".

ISIL "exploits the children’s love for this popular game and draws them to tournaments it holds, which has made football fields the second-ranked target for recruitment after mosques", she said.