There apparently isn’t anything ISIS won’t do.
In a recent video released by Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, small children armed with assault rifles are seen leading men to their death. Eight Shiite men were led to a Syrian field and were then beheaded, according to news reports over the weekend.
The prisoners are clad in the typical orange jumpsuits used in ISIS execution videos. The footage then shows ISIS terrorists cutting off the heads of the men with knives.
One of the ISIS executioners speaks to the camera, describing the men as “impure infidels,” according to the Independent newspaper.
“Our swords will soon, God willing, reach the Nusairis and their allies like Bashar and his party,” the fighter says, who is referring to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and uses a pejorative to refer to the Alawite sect.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed the Independent that the video is likely authentic.
Earlier this month, ISIS posted a video of a child who looks no older than 14 years old shooting a prisoner in the forehead. Another video uploaded last month show kids being trained at the so-called “Cubs for Caliphate” camp in Syria.
ISIS-recruited child soldiers are apparently active in Syria, the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told Reuters on Tuesday in an exclusive report.
The so-called “Cubs” are used because kids are quite easy to brainwash, said Rami Abdulrahman, the head of the Observatory. “They use children because it is easy to brainwash them. They can build these children into what they want, they stop them from going to school and send them to IS schools instead,” he told Reuters last week.
This weekend, Assad said the ISIS group has been expanding since a U.S.-led coalition began its airstrikes on the group in Iraq and Syria last year.
In an interview with CBS News aired Sunday night, Assad said IS has been gaining more recruits with some estimates showing “1,000 recruits every month in Syria.”
Assad, using an alternative acronym for the IS group, said in the interview: “If you want to talk in terms of ISIS, actually ISIS has expanded since the beginning of the strikes.”
Assad added that IS has established a presence in Libya and that militant groups in Egypt and Yemen have claimed allegiance or loyalty to the group.
The Islamic militant group controls about a third of Iraq and Syria in a self-declared caliphate.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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