Videos of ISIS activists reveal a shocking discovery in Syria. Children from the ages of fifteen and under are being indoctrinated with images of war and executions to keep the future of terrorism for generations to come.

ISIS is training and indoctrinating children ranges from the age of five to fifteen about war. The training camp located in Tabqa which is a rural area in the Raqqa state also known as Ashbal Al-Ezz training camp designed for the training the children for war with terrorism and prepare them for the frontlines alongside ISIS. The indoctrination process is a series of videos of mass murder, beheadings, and stoning of women. A common video is one of a man being crucified for three days till his death for the refusal to fast during the time of Ramadan and a woman who was stoned to death for committing to adultery. ISIS is also teaching the children words they know nothing of and using the words as a weapon to fight along ISIS. ISIS is indoctrinating children that the west is evil and “we follow god and the rest of the world follow America”.

“Somebody who was twelve years old ten years ago is now perfectly capable of carrying a weapon, if that person is radicalized ten years ago. They are a full-fledged fighter. The half-life of an insurgency is a decade,” Phil Mudd of the CIA Counterterrorism unit explained to CNN.

ISIS is using the ideology of Al Qaeda and the acts of 9/11. Even with all this falsification of government and the west is bad and that “ISIL follows god” can be prevented if acted upon quickly. The children are still young and can be reverted of these teachings of violence.

“The flipside of that is we can turn the tide against Al Qaeda, the same emotional trigger that taught them to believe the west is bad, the government is bad and beheading is OK, you might be able to convince them as an eight or ten year old that’s actually not right and switch them back”. Phil Mudd furthered.

A survivor from one of ISIS children training camps known as Mohammad (age thirteen) fled out of ISIS territory.

“They didn’t threatened me, but they threatened my father when he prevented me from going to Jhad and the camp. They said they would cut off his head,” said Mohammad.

Mohammad convinced the camp leaders to set him and his family free from ISIL hands and fled to Turkey for safety. Mohammad explains to the British news that

“ISIS jogs the children in the morning and lets them eat. By noon the children study the Koran. Last is the afternoon where ISIS trains the children weapons and military training with weapons to include the Kalashnikov AK-47,” Mohammad explained to British news.

After all what Mohammad has experienced with ISIL, Mohammad still has “faith” in Islam but not the violence ISIS implies to the religion.

FSA Practice Questions

1. Who is the author of this article?
2. In this article, what is radicalization?
3. What is the main idea of this article?
4. What two sentences best imply the main idea of this article?
5. What is the connotation of the word “indoctrination” in this article?