Guns and toys: the children of the Islamic State

 

A three year old boy chews on his finger and shyly looks off camera. "What do you say to the non-believers," a voice off camera asks. "They are going to be butchered," the child replies.

Messages coming from the Islamic State about children are mixed. On the one hand the militant group is keen for Sunni Muslims across the world to think of the caliphate as a safe and fun place for children – so that they will move there.

On the other, videos also exist of children being trained with assault weapons and in hand-to-hand combat. Or of children declaring their hatred for America and vowing jihad.

These two conditions for children are not mutually exclusive in the eyes of Islamic State, argues Raffaello Pantucci, a Middle East expert at the Royal United Services Institute.

Read more: http://www.channel4.com/news/islamic-state-iraq-syria-children-guns-video