New York Times: Saudi Arabia Pays Sudanese Children To Fight In Yemen

A Sudanese militiaman fighting under the command of the United Arab Emirates along the coastal highway leading to the contested port of Hudaydah, Yemen.CreditCreditTyler Hicks/The New York Times

New York Times: On the Front Line of the Saudi War in Yemen: Child Soldiers From Darfur

KHARTOUM, Sudan — The civil war in Darfur robbed Hager Shomo Ahmed of almost any hope. Raiders had stolen his family’s cattle, and a dozen years of bloodshed had left his parents destitute.

Then, around the end of 2016, Saudi Arabia offered a lifeline: The kingdom would pay as much as $10,000 if Hager joined its forces fighting 1,200 miles away in Yemen.

Hager, 14 at the time, could not find Yemen on a map, and his mother was appalled. He had survived one horrific civil war — how could his parents toss him into another? But the family overruled her.

“Families know that the only way their lives will change is if their sons join the war and bring them back money,” Hager said in an interview last week in the capital, Khartoum, a few days after his 16th birthday.

Read more ....

More News On Reports That Saudi Arabia Is Paying Sudanese Children To Fight In Yemen

Saudi Arabia is reportedly paying up to $10,000 to Sudanese militiamen, including child soldiers, to fight in their brutal war in Yemen -- Business Insider
Saudi Arabia recruited Darfur children for Yemen war: report -- The Hill
Child soldiers from Darfur fighting at front line of war in Yemen, returned soldiers say -- The Independent
Saudi Arabia pays Sudanese children to fight in Yemen, report claims -- Daily Sabah
Saudi Arabia recruited Darfur children to fight in Yemen: NYT -- Al Jazeera
Saudi Arabia is reportedly outsourcing its war in Yemen to child soldiers -- VOX

The New Face Of Islamic Terrorism

Washington Times: The new face of Islamic State terror is a 10-year-old American boy

A new face of the Islamic State is a 10-year-old American boy the terror army claims came to Syria two years ago with his mother from the United States.

In a new ISIL propaganda video, the boy is identified as an American citizen named “Yusuf” and says he is the son of a U.S. service member who deployed to Iraq.

“This battle is not going to end in Raqqa or Mosul. It’s going to end in your lands,” the boy says.

He looks straight at the camera lens to deliver an anti-Donald Trump diatribe, speaking in what sounds like Americanized English. He is shown living among the residences and destruction of Raqqa, the central Syrian city that ISIL claimed as the capital of its Muslim caliphate.

Read more ....

Update #1: ISIS Uses American Boy to Threaten Trump in New Video (Daily Beast)
Update #2: New ISIS Video Features 10-Year-Old American Living in Raqqa (PJMedia)

WNU Editor: The future does not look good for this child .... and others like him. Child soldiers are usually killed, and if the survive will live with their actions for a lifetime. He is not the first child used in an extremist Islamist video .... nor will he be the last .... the only thing that makes this young boy unique is that he appears to be an American.

United Nations: There Are Over 17000 Child Soldiers In South Sudan

On 26 October 2016, children associated with the Cobra faction wait to be demobilized in Pibor, South Sudan. A total of 145 children from the Cobra Faction and SPLA-IO were disarmed and released by the two armed groups. Photo: UNICEF/Charles Lomodong

UN News Centre: Number of children recruited into South Sudanese conflict passes 17,000 – UNICEF

15 December 2016 – According to new figures released by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), some 1,300 children were recruited by armed forces and armed groups in 2016, bringing the total number of children used in conflict since 2013 to more than 17,000.

“Since the first day of this conflict, children have been the ones most devastatingly affected by the violations,” said Leila Gharagozloo-Pakkala, UNICEF’s Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa.

“Now, as the fighting intensifies – and despite repeated pledges by all to end child recruitment – children are once again being targeted,” she added.

The Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and SPLA in Opposition have both signed agreements with the UN in order to end and prevent the recruitment and use of children in the conflict.

So far, 1,932 children have been released by armed forces: 1,755 in 2015 and 177 this year

Read more ....

Update #1: Rise in child recruitment as conflict in South Sudan enters fourth year -- UNICEF
Update #2: Nowhere to run for the children of South Sudan -- Al Jazeera

WNU Editor: My gut is telling me that these numbers are probably on the low end.

President Obama Issues Waivers For 7 Countries That Use Child Soldiers To Continue To Receive U.S. Military Aid

Child soldiers with weapons wait for instructions in an ethnic Hema militia camp near Bunia in the Democratic Republic of Congo in this file photo from June 16, 2003. REUTERS/Antony Njuguna

VOA/AP: South Sudan, Others With Child Soldiers Get US Waiver on Aid

JUBA, SOUTH SUDAN — President Barack Obama has issued waivers that continue millions of dollars in U.S. military assistance for troubled South Sudan and six other nations where child soldiers have been used, disappointing advocates who say his administration hasn't made curbing the use of children in combat a higher priority.

The waivers circumvent parts of the 2008 Child Soldiers Prevention Act, which is meant to block certain kinds of military assistance.

Waivers also have been granted to Somalia, Congo, Nigeria, Rwanda, Iraq and Myanmar. Aid to the countries varies dramatically. Iraq has received hundreds of millions in military support annually, while Myanmar received no military assistance in past years.

Read more ....

Update: These 7 Countries Use Child Soldiers, But Obama Will Still Give Them Money (Daily Caller)

WNU Editor: When we compromise on our principles we become no better than our enemies

The Islamic State Expands Its Ranks Of Child Soldiers

Maajid Nawaz, Daily Beast: The ISIS Army That’s Still Unborn

In ISIS-land, mothers are given books telling them how to raise their offspring for ‘jihad.’ This includes telling bedtime stories about ‘martyrdom.’

LONDON — There are roughly five million children living under the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. As such, it was only a matter of time before the worst terror group of our lifetime set its sights on them.
And now it has.

Working with Child Soldiers Initiative, and endorsed by UNICEF, my counter-extremism organization Quilliam has released a seminal report (PDF) documenting the use of child soldiers by ISIS. This report makes for cruel reading.

The United Nations has received credible but unverified reports suggesting that ISIS has created a youth wing called Fityan al-Islam, meaning boys of Islam. The precedent seems to have been set by the former Baathist regime of Saddam Hussain in Iraq, which in the late 1970s established the Futuwah (Youth Vanguard) movement with the most important Iraqi child soldier units known as Ashbal Saddam, or Saddam’s Lion Cubs.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: With such a huge pool of children to draw from, there is going to be no shortage of recruits for the Islamic State.

A Look At How The Islamic State Is Training Children To Be Its Shock Troops

An Isis video apparently depicting children in a training camp in 2015. Photograph: Isis

The Guardian: How Islamic State is training child killers in doctrine of hate

At least 50 UK youngsters are growing up in the Isis ‘caliphate’, where education means watching videos of murders.

A new generation of Isis recruits is being developed in the Islamic State’s “caliphate”, indoctrinated with religious concepts from birth, and viewed by its fighters as better and purer than themselves, according to the first study of the exploitation and abuse of children as a means of securing the group’s future.

Researchers for Quilliam, a London counter-extremism thinktank, have investigated the way Isis recruits children and indoctrinates and trains them for jihad. As many as 50 children from the UK are growing up in Islamic State-controlled territory, with an estimated 30,000 foreign recruits, including more than 800 Britons, believed to have gone to Syria to fight.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: The Islamic State is learning from history .... the Hitler Youth, the Khmer Rouge's use of child soldiers, Charles Taylor in Liberia, etc.

The Islamic State Continues To Recruit Child Soldiers

Katie Zavadski, Daily Beast: At Least 89 Child Soldiers Were Killed Fighting for ISIS Last Year

Far more children are fighting and dying—on the battlefield and in suicide attacks—for the terror group than was previously thought, according to a new report.

ISIS is deploying children as fighters and on suicide missions at far greater rates than previously estimated, according to a new report published in the Combatting Terrorism Center at West Point’s CTC Sentinel.

At least 89 boys died fighting in the name of ISIS from January 2015 to January 2016, according to the report’s authors, three terrorism researchers from Georgia State University. The researchers analyzed photographs published alongside eulogies and found that some of the children were younger than 12 years old.

The terrorism researchers cataloged the images, obtained largely from Twitter obituaries and ISIS’s official Telegram channel, based on 24 variables including nationality, location of death, and the facial expression in the photos used to publicize the child soldiers’ missions. The researchers then went through each photo and determined which pre-set age category—eight to 12, 12 to 16, or 16 to 18—the child fell into.

Read more ....

Update #1: Isis sending children to die at unprecedented rate, report warn -- Guardian
Update #2: “Brazen” use of child soldiers by ISIS: study -- Rudaw

WNU Editor: This is how the islamic State uses child soldiers .... How ISIS recruits children, then kills them (CNN).

New Islamic State Video 'Champions' Child Soldiers

Vocativ: ISIS Boy In New Video: "Give Me My Weapon"

For the first time, children speak at length directly into the camera

ISIS’s official media wing in Iraq’s Dijla province released a new video Wednesday that boasts the terror group’s boy fighters and ups the ante of a bellicose propaganda campaign championing child soldiers.

The video, called “The Cubs of Dijla” in a reference to the young boys being indoctrinated and groomed to fight, shows children as the clip’s primary speakers. They deliver monologues and recite verses of the Quran, marking the first time the Islamic State has depicted boys—one as young as three—speaking at length directly into the camera.

WNU Editor: The above video was posted by NBC 5 months ago ... but as Vocativ is reporting in the above post .... the Islamic State has continued to produce these videos on a regular basis.

Islamic State's Growing Use Of Child Soldiers

A still of an Isis video called "Al-Farouq Institute for Cubs" claiming to show a children's terror training camp

The Independent: Isis kidnaps up to 500 children in Iraq 'to use as suicide bombers and child soldiers'

Up to 500 children reportedly kidnapped by Isis in Iraq could be used as suicide bombers and child soldiers, officials have claimed.

They were taken to territory held by the so-called Islamic State in two provinces, possibly for training at the group’s camps for youngsters it dubs “cubs of the Caliphate”.

Farhan Mohammed, from Anbar’s provincial council, said boys had been abducted from the towns of Ar Rutba, Al-Qaim, Anah and Rawa over a week.

Update: ISIL kidnaps 500 children in Iraq’s Anbar, Diyala: Officials (Press TV).

WNU Editor: News coverage on the Islamic State using child soldiers is not new .... a number of news agencies covered this story earlier this year. But it appears that this tactic of using children as fodder in this war is expanding, with even more children being kidnapped and "brainwashed".

The Taliban Prepares The Next Generation For War

Indoctrinated: The boy (right) lives in the Tangi Valley, just an hour's drive from the Afghan capital Kabul

The Taliban Boy Aged Just THREE Being Trained For War Who Says He's 'Going To Shoot People' -- Daily Mail

* Film obtained by BBC shows young child playing with gun in Afghanistan
* Boy lives in Tangi Valley, where Taliban has grip on schools and courts
* Another pupil says of hopes for future: 'To serve my country and Islam'

Barely three years old and holding a gun, this little boy is terrifying proof of how the Taliban is reasserting its grip on Afghanistan.

As Western troops prepare to leave the country after 13 years of war, sinister footage has emerged from one of the fanatics’ strongholds.

In the film, obtained by the BBC, the three-year-old boy declares: ‘I’m going to shoot people.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: The BBC report is here.

Teenage Austrian Poster Girls For ISIS Who Moved To Syria To Live With Jihadis Are Now Pregnant And Want To Come Home

A photo posted on the girls' social media accounts. Doubts have now been cast regarding the authenticity of the picture - it's thought pictures of other people have been posted to their social media pages

'We Made A Big Mistake': Teenage Austrian Poster Girls For ISIS Who Moved To Syria To Live With Jihadis Are Now Pregnant And Want To Come Home... But Officials Say That Will Be 'Impossible' -- Daily Mail

* Two teenage girls vanished from homes in Austrian capital Vienna in April
* Pair began to post pictures of themselves online with guns and armed men
* Now it's believed the two regret their decision and want to return home
* Both thought to have been married to jihadists and are now pregnant
* Unconfirmed reports one had been killed thought to have been incorrect

The two Austrian teenage girls who became ‘poster girls’ for jihad in Syria are now desperate to come home after getting completely disillusioned with their new lifestyles.

Samra Kesinovic, 17, and her friend Sabina Selimovic, 15, who grew up in the Austrian capital Vienna, were persuaded to head to Syria and take part in the holy war in April.

The girls had started lecturing schoolmates about their lifestyle and when they left Vienna in April they left behind a note telling their parents: 'Don’t look for us. We will serve Allah – and we will die for him'.

Read more ....

My Comment: The first thing that I thought was .... where are the parents? Then .... how did they get their passports? And then .... they are the new poster girls for defining idiocy. Unfortunately .... this is now becoming a huge problem in Europe .... Schoolgirl jihadis: the female Islamists leaving home to join Isis fighters (The Guardian)

Update: Jewish girl has joined ISIS, French intelligence official reveals: Dozens of teenagers have fled to Syria and Iraq from France to horror of families -- Daily Mail

UN Report: Syrian Children Enduring 'Unspeakable' Suffering

UN Decries Child Abuse In Syria -- Al Jazeera

New UN report accuses Assad forces of arbitrary detention and torture, and rebel groups of recruiting refugee children.

The United Nations has accused both sides to the Syria conflict of grave violations against children.

Children caught in the Syrian war are being recruited as child soldiers, used as human shields, and tortured, according to a new UN report.

The report, released on Tuesday, found that in the early stages of the nearly three-year conflict, the Syrian government troops were largely responsible for grave violations against children; then, as the conflict intensified and armed opposition became more organised they committed an increasing number of child abuses.

Read more ....

More News On The UN Report That Details The Suffering Of Children In Syria

First UN report on children in Syria’s civil war paints picture of ‘unspeakable’ horrors -- UN News Centre
UN: ‘Unspeakable suffering’ for Syria’s children -- Washington Post/AP
Syrian children enduring 'unspeakable' suffering -- BBC
U.N. Report Details Abuse of Children in Syrian War -- New York Times
U.N. report says Syrian children subjected to horrific treatment -- UPI
UN Report: Syria Child Abuse By Rebels, Government Troops 'Is Unspeakable And Unacceptable' -- Huffington Post/Reuters
Children Conscripted, Tortured and Executed in Syria War: Report -- NBC
U.N. Says At Least 10,000 Children Killed in Syria -- Time

Four-Year-Old Al Qaeda Recruit Shows How To Fire An AK-47

Junior Jihad: Spraying Bullets From An AK-47, The Four-Year-Old Al Qaeda Fighter In Syria Who Should Be In Infants’ School -- Daily Mail

* Video shows youngster opening fire twice to shouts of 'Allahu Akbar'
* He is so small the gun barrel was supported by a section of road block
* Alarming footage was released by a jihadist group fighting Syrian civil war
* Other images show children aged nine to 15 training in black ski masks
* UN peace talks collapsed last night and Assad government may not return

He is barely old enough to go to infant school, let alone fight in a savage civil war.

Yet this youngster, believed to be just four years old, is one of the latest ‘cub jihadists’ recruited for bloody battle in Syria.

He can be seen firing rounds from an automatic assault rifle in a shocking video that has emerged from the war-torn country.

Read more ....

My Comment: A depressing look at what Syria has become.

United Nations: Child Soldiers Are Swelling Fighters' Ranks In Central African Republic

Photo: A child soldier fighting for the Seleka rebel coalition stands in front of the presidential palace in Bangui March 25, 2013. Credit: Reuters/Ange Aboa

Child Soldiers Swell Fighters' Ranks In Central African Republic: U.N. -- Reuters

(Reuters) - The number of child soldiers in Central African Republic has more than doubled to as many as 6,000 in recent months as self-defense militia have sprung up to counter waves of attacks by former rebels, the United Nations said on Friday.

World powers, led by France, are scrambling to contain a crisis that Paris and U.N. officials have warned could lead to genocide in Central African Republic, which slipped into chaos after rebels ousted the president in March.

Some 400,000 people have fled their homes since the uprising and the tit-for-tat killings that followed.

UNICEF, the U.N.'s children's agency, warned of a complex crisis that has seen local communities set up self-defense groups to halt abuses by the northern, mainly Muslim Seleka rebel alliance that swept to power.

Read more ....

Update #1: Number of child soldiers in CAR has nearly doubled since March: UN -- AFP
Update #2: UNICEF says up to 6,000 child soldiers fighting in Central African Republic -- Euronews

My Comment: The problem of child soldiers is not only isolated to the Central African Republic .... Colombia, the Kurds, DRC, and even Al Qaeda have used (and are using) child soldiers.

U.S. Sanctions Five Nations Over The Use Of Child Soldiers

Child soldiers, possibly Rwandan, are seen at Kanyabayonga in eastern Congo.

US Sanctions Five Nations Over Child Soldiers -- Voice of America/Reuters

The United States moved to block military assistance to five countries, including three in Africa, over their use of child soldiers in armed conflicts, U.S. officials said on Thursday.

The sanctions affect Central African Republic, Rwanda and Sudan as well as Burma (also known as Myanmar) and Syria, according to the U.S. State Department.

"Our goal is to work with countries who have been listed to ensure that any involvement in child soldiers — any involvement in the recruitment of child soldiers — stop," U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Linda Thomas-Greenfield said.

Read more ....

More News On The U.S. Sanctioning Five Nations Over The Use Of Child Soldiers

US sets sanctions vs. five nations with child soldiers -- GMA News
US sanctions Rwanda over rebel use of child soldiers -- France 24/AFP
US Withholds Some Military Aid to Rwanda Over Child Soldiers -- Voice of America
Rwanda condemns US M23 child soldiers sanctions -- BBC
Rwanda Denies Recruitment of Child Soldiers in Congo -- Wall Street Journal

No U.S. Sanctions On Countries That Use Child Soldiers

Somalia's goverment army. (REUTERS/James Akena)

Obama Waives Sanctions On Countries That Use Child Soldiers -- The Cable/Foreign Policy

U.S. President Barack Obama issued a new executive order last week to fight human trafficking, touting his administration's handling of the issue.

"When a little boy is kidnapped, turned into a child soldier, forced to kill or be killed -- that's slavery," Obama said in a speech at the Clinton Global Initiative. "It is barbaric, and it is evil, and it has no place in a civilized world. Now, as a nation, we've long rejected such cruelty."

But for the third year in a row, Obama has waived almost all U.S. sanctions that would punish certain countries that use child soldiers, upsetting many in the human rights community.

Read more ....

More News On The U.S. Waiving Sanctions On Countries That Use Child Soldiers

President Obama turns his back on child soldiers again -- Washington Times
Rights groups criticize U.S. military aid for nations using child soldiers -- Stars and Stripes
Obama removes penalties for countries using child soldiers -- Human Events
Obama continues US military aid to countries using child soldiers -- Digital Journal

My Comment: President Obama is essentially saying .... look at what I say and not what I do. As to what is my take .... this is the real world .... child soldiers have always been used throughout history .... and I have very little reason to believe that it will change in the future.

United Nations: There Are Still Hundreds Of Thousands Of Child Soldiers

UN: Hundreds Of Thousands Of Child Soldiers Kept In Slavery -- The Telegraph

More than 11,000 child soldiers were freed from military slavery last year, but the United Nations has said there may still be hundreds of thousands left around the world.

The UN believes hundreds of thousands of children are forced to fight at gunpoint by the Taliban in Afghanistan, Congo warlord Bosco Ntaganda, the Shebab in Somalia, Ansar Dine in Mali and other terror groups and private armies around the world.

The 14-year jail term ordered against Thomoas Lubanga by the International Criminal Court on Tuesday is a "historic" signal, according to Radhika Coomaraswamy, who ends a six-year term this month as UN special representative on children in conflict.

Read more ....

Update: Warlords enslave huge armies of child soldiers -- AFP

My Comment: As long as there is war ... there will be child soldiers.

Child Soldiers Still Being Used In The Congo Rebellion

Report: Congo Mutiny Using Child Soldiers -- Voice of America

NAIROBI -- Human Rights Watch says a renegade general is forcibly recruiting child soldiers to support his mutiny in the northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

HRW's new report says at least 149 boys and young men between the ages of 12 and 20 have been forcibly recruited to fight alongside soldiers loyal to Bosco Ntaganda, a former rebel leader who is already wanted by the International Criminal Court for recruiting children as a deputy commander in the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC), an armed political group that fought in northern Congo during the country's civil war.

The report says at least seven have died in battle.

Read more ....

More News On The Use Of Child Soldiers In The Congo

Congo ex-general said to be recruiting child soldiers again -- Washington Times/AP
Congo ex-warlord in hiding as his former fighters lead mutiny from country’s military -- Washington Post/AP
Congo 'Terminator' still forcing youngsters to fight, says HRW -- BBC
Congo: General Indicted in ’03 for Using Child Soldiers Is at It Again, Report Says -- New York Times/AP
Report: Congo mutineer forces 149 more boys, young men to fight -- L.A. Times
DR. Congo warlord 'recruiting child soldiers' -- AFP
Teenagers fighting in Congo -- UPI

Congolese Warlord Convicted By The ICC Of Using Child Soldiers

Court Convicts Former Congolese Warlord Of Using Child Soldiers -- L.A. Times

REPORTING FROM JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA -- The International Criminal Court in the Hague on Wednesday found former Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga guilty of using children as soldiers, the first verdict in the panel's 10-year history. He could face life imprisonment.

After a three-year trial, the court convicted Lubanga of recruiting boys and girls as soldiers during a civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2002 and 2003.

Read more ....

More News On The Conviction Of Congo Warlord Thomas Lubanga

Congo warlord convicted of using child soldiers -- FOX News/AP
Congo warlord Thomas Lubanga convicted of using child soldiers -- The Guardian
DR Congo's Lubanga found guilty by ICC -- Al Jazeera
Congolese Warlord Thomas Lubanga Convicted Of Using Child Soldiers -- RTT News
ICC Verdict Finds Lubanga Guilty of Using Child Soldiers -- Voice of America
ICC finds Congolese warlord guilty in its first verdict -- CNN
ICC Shows Teeth for First Time with Lubanga Ruling -- Voice of America
US calls Congolese warlord's conviction 'historic' -- AFP
Historic verdict condemns warlord, but Hague court limited -- Reuters
Lubanga judgment marks milestone in the path towards accountability -- The Guardian
Delay in Lubanga judgment demonstrates ICC weaknesses -- Joshua Rozenberg, The Guardian
Thomas Lubanga conviction: why did it take so long? -- Owen Bowcott, The Guardian
Warlords beyond Lubanga and Kony -- Sharanjeet Parmar, Special to CNN
Ten years, $900m, one verdict: Does the ICC cost too much? -- Jon Silverman, BBC

President Obama Waives Child Soldier Ban For Yemen And Congo

Amnesty International estimates that about 250,000 children under the age of 18 are currently fighting in warzones. The practice is ancient and often highly secretive, but over the past couple of decades has been seared into the international consciousness, largely through graphic, wrenching images of young children in situations no child should ever experience. Wars in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Liberia have become especially infamous for their use of child soldiers. Here a young rebel poses with his machine-gun in Kalemie, southeast Congo, on Sept. 2, 1998. ABDELHAK SENNA/AFP/Getty Images

Obama Waives Child Soldier Ban In Yemen And Congo -- ABC News

Tens of millions of dollars of U.S. military financing will continue to flow to Yemen and three other countries that recruit and use child soldiers, despite a 2008 U.S. law designed to restrict U.S. taxpayer funding of foreign militaries that enlist children to fight in war.

The White House issued a memorandum Tuesday evening to allow military funding to Yemen, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Chad, three of the six countries on the State Department's list of foreign governments that recruit and use child soldiers in state-backed armed forces and militias.

Read more ....

More News On President Obama Waiving The Child Soldier Ban In Yemen And Congo

Congress strikes back against Obama’s child soldiers' waivers -- Josh Rogin, The Cable/Foreign Policy
Obama waives penalties on countries that employ child soldiers – again! -- Josh Rogin, The Cable/Foreign Policy
Obama: Still Letting Child Soldiers Be Soldiers -- Mother Jones
Obama Administration Waives Child Soldier Law -- BET
Pres. Obama Sending Millions to Countries that use Child Soldiers -- Opposing Views

My Comment: A photo gallery of child soldiers can be found here.