For Abu Adam, childhood wasnt a time of candy and playing video games as it should be for kids his age. He was snatched from his family to become a ‘caliphate cub’ – an elite unit of boys taught to behead anyone who disagrees with the evil extremists’ vile views – even their own parents.
In an extraordinary interview, with the MailOnline he told tales of how he was pushed to his limits so he could beat someone to death with his bare hands, and forced to study videos of beheadings so he could learn how to become and executioner himself, in the most terrifying account of life as a child soldier in the caliphate to date.
Here’s what he said
‘ISIS taught me to beat and kill and behead anyone who is not a Muslim and does not follow the Koran,’ he said.
‘I was told anyone who does not follow the Koran was an infidel. I was shown how shoot and behead them.
We were forced to chant; I will fight for ISIS, I will fight for Sheikh Baghdadi.’
Abu Adam was one of 150 youngsters brain-washed to hate non-Muslims and prepare to die in battle as one of the Caliphate Cubs, trained to fire a Kalashnikov automatic rifle and shown how to cut off an infidels head with a knife all by the age of 10.
Adam was one of their best fighters – ‘famous’, his older brother boasts – at the Al Farok Institute, where boys were instructed in a daily routine of religious indoctrination and military training by his fanatical tutors who wanted to turn him and his friends into an army of fearless ISIS killers.
Dressed in uniform and a black bandana he was paraded before the world as a willing recruit who would fight to his last drop of blood in shocking propaganda videos and photographs posted on the internet, just like the ones he watches on repeat.
Abu Adam (not his real name) was sent to the training camp in Raqqa after he was captured, along with dozens of other Yazidi boys, during ISIS’s lightening attack on Sinjar in August 2014.
About half those in training were Yazidis, separated from their relatives, forced to adopt an Islamic name, pray five times a day and banned from speaking their native Kurdish language.
Packed up to 20 into a room the young recruits slept in bunk beds and helped each other learn the long difficult passages from the Koran to escape beatings if they got it wrong.
Their daily routine consisted of hours of religious indoctrination followed by hours of physical exercises, military training and propaganda.
‘We were taught about Islam and how to fight and that was it, he said.
‘We were woken at 4am for the first prayer. We went back to sleep for a couple of hours.
They woke us again at 6am. They taught us the Koran and Sharia law until 12.
Then after lunch, at 1pm, we would receive military training.’
He continued: ‘We would start off with exercises. We would loosen up, stretch and bend our legs, do press-ups, star jumps and sit-ups.
‘I became very strong.
We stood in lines and punched the air and we learned how to box in groups.
‘I was told anyone who does not follow the Koran was an infidel. I was shown how shoot and behead them.
‘Later in the day they showed us videos of infidels being beheaded. They showed us again and again.
They brought two Kurdish fighters into the training camp.
‘They had killed them and they were already dead. They brought them in the back of a pick-up truck. They brought them to show us.’
All the time ISIS told us how they killed soldiers from other armies.
He added: ‘They taught me about guns, about the Kalashnikov and the pistol. They taught me how to fire it, to take it apart and how to clean it.
‘I fired the Kalashnikov many times. I fired it at bottles of water, at trees and at dummies.
‘They taught me to use a knife. So that when I became a soldier I would be able to behead the infidels.
‘I had to wear the ISIS army uniform. It was camouflage like a soldier, or black or grey. I had to wear a bandana with the ISIS emblem.’
‘At first they tied the bandana around my head. Later I learned how to do it myself.’
‘But I did not want to fight for them or be a soldier for ISIS’, he added.
The youngster was held for many months. He suffered most during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims, although not children, are meant to fast – allowed no food or water between sun rise and sun set.
He said: ‘The worst time was during Ramadan. ISIS closed the kitchen and they did not give us anything to eat. We felt so hungry. I fainted I was so hungry and thirsty.’
‘One time I was very hungry and I asked for food but they beat me because it was Ramadan. They beat me with a plastic pipe.’
‘It was so hard when they beat us. They beat everyone. I saw many beatings.’
Despite the brutal treatment and indoctrination Adam never forgot his Yazidi roots.
He said
‘I missed my family. I thought of home. I was not allowed to talk in Kurdish, only Arabic. We were not allowed to say anything about our lives before we were taken by ISIS.’
‘But of course I remembered my parents and my brothers although I did not talk about them.’
‘There were a lot of other Yazidi boys at the training camp. None of them wanted to be there.’
‘At night, after we were sent to bed, we would whisper to each other in Kurdish. We slept in rooms on bunk beds. There were between five and 20 beds in each room. Sometimes we had fun.’
After over a year of training as an ISIS child soldier the youngster was able to get a message from his family who organized his escape.
‘I had missed everyone from my family. All during my time there I wanted to escape and get away from ISIS.’
Adam may have clung to memories of his life before ISIS stole him from his family, but even for him, returning to his old way of life was difficult.
During the first week his [Adam’s] mind was not good. He was still interested in Islam,’ his brother revealed
When he came home he questioned his [Yazidi] religion.
I noticed this when I took him to the visit the Lalish Temple [the holiest shrine in the Yazidi faith].
He told me that he didn’t want to worship stones. But I told him it’s not worship, it is a holy place for all Yazidi.
After he understood what had happened to him he hated Islam.
Now living in a refugee camp in northern Iraq, this charming boy does not bear any physical scars from his months of captivity. It is difficult to gauge the psychological damage he has suffered from his months as a child soldier – the impact of which can last for years, experts claim.
Therefore, the joy of his return is tinged with fear of what they may grow up to be.
While Adam’s tale may not be a completely happy one, other child soldiers have it worse. They are soldier, skilled in techniques children their age shouldnt be.
We dont know what will become of these children in the future, admitted Hussein AlQaidy, director of the Office of Kidnapped Affairs in Dohuk province.
We fear they will harm not only Iraq, but the whole world.’
Mr. AlQuaidy added: The children are brainwashed.
Even when they come back we find they say Allah Akbar automatically.
I spoke to one boy. He was a Yazidi. He told me I was an unbeliever, an infidel. He had been brain washed and told me that I was an infidel and that I should be killed.
He had been taken to Raqqa with his mother and taken to a training camp.
Adam, like other boys, has struggled to come to terms with what happened to him, but he does not suffer nightmares, rage or isolation or any signs of PTSD, which is common among child soldiers.
Isabelle Guitard, of Child Soldiers International, said
Children recruited and used by armed groups will be affected in different ways by the events the experience, and the emotional impact of this experience can evolve over time with regard to anxiety, depression, or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
The psychological impact of being associated with an armed group will depend on each childs age and personality, on whether they were abducted or joined an armed group willingly, on their life circumstances prior to their joining an armed group and on whether or not children have witnessed or committed atrocities themselves.
Many children may display dysfunctional behaviour and PTSD symptoms years after their release from a group.
Adam, who dreams of one day becoming a teacher or doctor ‘so I can help people’, is one of only a handful of ISIS child soldiers who have managed to escape the terrible training camp and be reunited with their families.
Mr. AlQaidy claims 13 cub soldiers have been rescued so far, They are now in Germany undergoing rehabilitation.
It’s a sad tale but it doesnt end there, ISIS has also tried these techniques on females, forcing them to convert and marrying them off.
It’s a sad tale but it doesn’t end there, ISIS has also tried these techniques on females, forcing them to convert and marrying them off.