New Islamic State Baby Photo Features ISIS Birth Certificate, Gun, and Grenade

Another Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) baby emerged on social media, which rightfully caused outrage and condemnation around the world.

The baby is asleep, flanked by a gun and grenade with an “official” Islamic State birth certificate. A man named Abu Ward al-Raqqawi posted the picture with the caption, “This child will be [a] risk to you not just to us.”

Al-Raqqawi’s bio on Twitter states he founded the organization Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, which combats ISIS. He also said he is fighting against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“By showing the birth certificate, and the fact that the group are indoctrinating babies, I think ISIS are indicating they will be around for a long time,” explained one terrorism activist. “It’s an interesting signal of life within the caliphate. Obviously by posting opposition to the Islamic State from within their borders the activist is operating with great risk.”

Last week, Aymenn Al-Tamimi, a Shillman-Ginsburg Fellow at the Middle east Forum at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya in Israel, reported that ISIS set up a bureaucracy in Iraq and Syria to grant birth certificates and medical care to those within their caliphate. ISIS also manages a mobile vaccination unit.

“This is one thing that distinguishes ISIS from groups like the Taliban, which forbids vaccinations,” he told CNN. “Polio is a problem in Pakistan because the Taliban believes the vaccines are a forbidden substance. But ISIS is not that primitive. This is also reflected in education: The Taliban forbids all girls’ education. But ISIS allows girls to go to school, albeit in a segregated environment.”

In January, a Twitter account associated with ISIS, which is now suspended, posted a picture of a newborn baby with an ISIS beanie. The owner of the account congratulated the family on a daughter and stated the family will soon be full of ISIS soldiers. Another picture showed a young girl embracing an AK-47. Other accounts shared pictures in September of a two-month-old baby in an ISIS onesie. Yet another photo surfaced online of a child at least twelve months old in front of the Islamic State black flag, holding a Kalashnikov rifle.