President Barack Obama mocked Republicans responding to his acceptance of Syrian refugees, saying the GOP are “scared of widows and orphans,” and “worried about 3-year-old orphans.” But it’s Obama who appears to be uninformed.
PBS Frontline’s Isis in Afghanistan Monday evening reported on how children – as young as toddler age – are trained for jihad.
According to Frontline, ISIS fighters “say all local children are educated by the Islamic State from the age of three.”
A scene is shown in the documentary of an ISIS fighter teaching a class of young children.
“The teacher, Abdullah, spends a few minutes explaining the theory of jihad, or holy war,” a narrator says. “Then he moves on to its practice.”
Abdullah teaches the children, “You know that this is the school of the Islamic State…What is jihad?” he asks the children, then instructs, “We must implement God’s religion over all people. God says do jihad until intrigue, idolatry and infidelity are gone from the world.”
The ISIS fighter shows the young children various firearms and asks them, “Why do we use this?” A boy responds, “To defend the faith.”
“And whose heads will we hit with this?” Abdullah asks the children. “Infidels,” the boy replies.
After showing them a hand grenade, Abdullah quizzes a boy on what to do with it.
“Pull the pin,” he reminds the children, then asks, “What next?” “Throw it,” a boy responds. “Throw it…and then?” Abdullah asks. “Lie down,” a child answers.
Later in the broadcast, the narrator states, “The fighters told [journalist] Najibullah [Quraishi] that they received propaganda videos directly from ISIS in Syria and Iraq. They say they show the videos to the village children every day.”
“I was asking them, ‘Why are they watching in front of these young children?’” says Najibullah. “They say, ‘They should learn. They should know from now,’ and it’s normal for them.”
As Frontline shows an ISIS military school for children, Najibullah says, “All these videos, they just telling them how to kill people, how to behead, and how to become suicide bomber. And the main thing is to kill infidels.”
“This is their aim,” Najibullah continues. “And they’re clearly telling this is in Koran. So what the child believe? What they think? They think, ‘Yes, I’m Muslim, and he’s telling me the truth.’”
Najibullah then films the Afghan children copying what they’ve just watched in the videos.
“When I saw these young children, I was really, really upset,” he says. “Really sad. These children who learn how to kill people, how to do jihad, how to behave, how to fire. I was thinking, ‘Maybe the war will never end. Never.’”