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Daesh babies: Chilling new trend in the caliphate
[RFE/RL] The sharing of baby and toddler photos is a disturbing new trend among Daesh recruits who've come from Russia and the Central Asia region. That Daesh militants are having babies in Syria is not surprising, as foreign fighters are are encouraged to marry. Many others brought their children with them to Daesh-controlled territory.But these babies are now being used by their fathers to prove they are "good" jihadis. Militants are sharing pictures of themselves holding their babies or toddlers and calling them "future mujahedin." The trend is particularly fashionable among North Caucasian militants from the Chechen-led Daesh faction Katibat al-Aqsa. One Chechen militant, Mansur Shishani, was photographed in May posing with a toddler named Askhab. Both Mansur and the toddler are holding guns. Another Katibat al-Aqsa militant, Zakaria Kureish, posted an image of his two babies with the caption, "My children are growing up in the caliphate." But it is not only rank-and-file terrorists who have posted such photos. The notorious Tajik militant Nusrat Nazarov (alias Abu Kholidi Kurobi) had a photograph of himself taken wearing military fatigues and a black beret with a Daesh logo, while holding a baby. Nazarov was reported killed in Syria earlier this month. The leader of Katibat al-Aqsa, a Chechen named Abu Umar Grozny, has photographed himself holding his baby daughter dressed in a camouflage-patterned head scarf. These photographs are being used for recruitment purposes. The message is clear, in Daesh-controlled territory, even toddlers are taking up arms and are therefore more "manly" than those who stay at home and refuse to fight. The future for the youngsters shown off in the photographs is bleak. Unless they are killed in fighting, or unless Daesh is dislodged, the male babies will undergo military training and ideological indoctrination from an early age. Unless Daesh is defeated before they are tweens, it will likely recruit them as "caliphate cubs." Daesh continues to use children under 18 as front-line fighters, and even as suicide bombers and to carry out execution-style killings. Posted by: ryuge 2015-07-20 |
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