As far as the Islamic State is concerned, what they’re doing is meritorious and pleasing to Allah, so why shouldn’t children participate? “‘Our youngest martyr yet’ – Isil boasts about death of 10-year-old,” by Harriet Alexander, Telegraph, October 9, 2014 (thanks to Anne Crockett):
Fighters from the Islamic State have proudly posted photos of a child who they claim is the youngest person to die while fighting on their side.
The 10-year-old boy is named by the Islamists as Abu Ubaidah. A Twitter account run by Isil sympathisers said on October 9 that he was killed, alongside his father, by an American air strike two weeks ago.
US aircraft have been carrying out air strikes across Iraq and northern Syria, and the account did not say where he was killed.
But the disturbing series of photos posted by the Isil account show a smiling boy wearing a woollen hat and combat fatigues, posing frequently with guns.
In one image the machine gun is almost bigger than he is – standing in the hallway of a house, he beams to the camera as he strikes a pose with the gun.
In another, he is standing beside a truck which has been turned into an improvised tank, with a metal sheet covering the windscreen.
Isil’s recruitment of child soldiers has been long-known.
Photos taken from Raqqa, the heartland of Isil, shows lines of balaclava-clad children marching through the streets….