The Islamic State released a video Sunday showing a jihadi training camp for children based in the militant group’s stronghold of Raqqa in northern Syria.
At the training camp, the Farouq Institute for (Jihadi) Cubs, children from the Middle East and elsewhere are “brought together by Allah to learn this religion,” one of the instructors explains.
The pinnacle of which, the teacher continues, is “jihad in the path of Allah.”
The children in the video wear matching camouflage uniforms, but mismatched sneakers and perform calisthenics.
The video, translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute, explains that they are meant to be the next generation of the Islamic State, which will conquer Jerusalem and Rome.
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Children in these training camps are given blonde-haired, blue-eyed dolls to decapitate “for homework,” one father told the website Syria Deeply.
Raqqa has been the de facto capital of the Islamic State since it took control of the city last year. But in recent months coalition forces and Kurdish peshmerga fighters have been fighting back against IS, inflicting heavy losses among its fighters and on its infrastructure.
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