Washington Post: Terrorists' Camps to train Syrian children to carry weapons (Syrian Arab News Agency)

Washington, (SANA) – U.S. journalist Joby Warrick, a
Washington Post reporter, revealed a video footage showing
young boys being trained at camps affiliated to the "Islam
State of Iraq and Sham".

In a report published on Washington Post Newspaper under
the title " Extremist Syrian faction touts training camp for
boys", Warrick said that the video shows hooded recruits in
camouflage shoot at targets or march in formation under the
black flag of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, adding that all
of the trainees are young boys.

" But look closer and the “fighters” appear quite small. The
tallest are barely chest-high to their instructors, and the
shorter ones wear ill-fitting uniforms and appear to struggle
under the weight of their weapons. A photo of the recruits
without their hoods confirms that all of them are young
boys," he wrote.
"They are “Zarqawi’s Cubs,” the youth brigade of Syria’s most
fearsome Islamist rebel group and one of the newest
manifestations of al-Qaeda’s deepening roots in rebel-
controlled sections of the country. Building on earlier efforts
to expand their influence in Syrian schools, radical Islamists
appear to be stepping up efforts to indoctrinate and train
children, some as young as 10, according to independent
experts who have studied the phenomenon", he added.
The reporter goes on saying that " The establishment of the
Zarqawi’s Cubs camp — revealed in a video posted last month
by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS — is viewed as
particularly worrisome because of the similarities to Iraq’s
“Birds of Paradise.” That brigade was created a decade ago by
the same terrorist group, in its earlier incarnation as al-Qaeda
in Iraq, to train children for military missions, including
suicide bombings".

Last month, The Syrian Ministry of Expatriates and Foreign
Affairs sent two messages to the Secretary-General of the UN
and Chairman of the UN Security Council, saying that children
are being exposed to many types of crimes at the hands of the
armed terrorist groups, including recruiting, abducting and
killing them. The Ministry added that the terrorists are also
occupying schools and using them as torturing centers.