Children are the Firewood of ISIS’ Battles

Abdalaziz Alhamza – Exclusive – RBSS

Like other extremist groups, ISIS group pushes children in his war against his enemies. Children was always a tool used by the group and they enabled the group to win some battles. Therefore, ISIS turned to broaden their training camps and to use several means to attract and recruit as many as possible of children.

The camps of “Caliphate Cubs” are today present at each city controlled by the group after it was existing in few numbers and exclusively in certain cities. ISIS started to focus more on children’s camps pushed by the gains achieved by them. Despite of the weakness of their combat experience, ISIS used them as a magnet to attract and recruit the others in suicide bombings aimed at draining the energy of its enimies. In the other hand those children enabled the group to gain the factor of numerical superiority, where the human element is always present and ready to participate the ranks of ISIS at any battle.

These camps are no longer just that camps which established to train the children. Books issued by ISIS are also considered as a mobile camps which inject the thought of the group into the minds of children every day. Even the streets have been turned into camps as what described by “Abu Abdullah” a civilian from Raqqa, who said: “I’m not afraid about my children from going to ISIS camps only, every moment experienced by the children here is a camp, even when they came out into the street, ISIS members met them and broadcast their poisonous ideas into their minds, and they sometimes learn them how to use the weapons carried by them.”

ISIS found its aim among children after the extension of his fights recently on several fronts in Syria, most of them against the Free Syrian Army and few against the regime forces. Each battle needs a set of suicide bombers according to ISIS fighting way, so they started their attack against any area with several suicide bombers in preparation for the entry of other fighters, most of these bombers are from children who have extra enthusiasm and do not fear of death.

In spite of the expansion of the scope of ISIS across Syria, the clash areas with Syrian regime forces are decreasing daily unlike his battles against the Free Army. The group which dominated on Deir Ezzor one year ago, could not progress toward the positions of regime which his forces control an area does not exceed 15 squar kilometers. Thus ISIS is unable to progress towards these areas, in spite of being able to take the control of the bulk of the province, which was controlled by the free army previously.

The last attack of ISIS fighters against the positions of regime is a response to the attack from regime forces toward its regions, so ISIS sends a message to the regime forces that the response will be quick and not in the same area. Therefore, when the regime forces has approached from the eastern rural of Aleppo, ISIS waged an attack on the strongholds of the regime inside Deir Ezzor, where the frequency of these attacks rises whenever the frequency of the regime attacks rise and stops when they stopped also after presenting a number of children as offerings among these battles.

media activist from the city of Raqqa, student at the Faculty of Law at the University of the Euphrates. Director of the Media Office of Raqqa, founding member of "Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently", founding member of the documentary project of "Sound and Picture". I work in documenting violations committed by Assad's regime and ISIS group and extremist organizations inside the city of Raqqa, as I work in programming, design and visual media. I hold a certificate of coach in digital security, and a certificate of journalist coach, and a certificate in documenting violations against human rights, and a certificate in electronic advocacy. I underwent a training under the supervision of "Cyber-Arabs" in collaboration with the Institute for War and Peace "IWPR", about the management of electronic websites and leadership of advocacy campaigns, and a training of press photography under the supervision of the photojournalist "Peter Hove Olesen".