Lion Cubs

The Lion Cubs, also known as Ashbal, are child soldiers in the Middle East.

Lion Cubs – Al Qaeda

The Ashbal Al Qaeda Lion Cubs of Al Qaeda have appeared in Morocco, Iraq, and places in between.[1]

Lion Cubs – Saddam Hussein

Since 1991, Saddam Hussein's Ashbal child soldiers in Iraq employed training techniques intended to desensitize the youth to violence, including frequent beatings and deliberate cruelty to animals. The exact numbers of the Ashbal Saddam were not known, but there were an estimated 8,000 members in Baghdad alone.[2]

Lion Cubs – Lebanon

Ashbal in Lebanon since spring 1969 have been led by Palestinian Arab leaders like Yasser Arafat, A. Shukairy and George Habash, who initially dubbed them 'baby tigers' and were active in the 1970s and 1980s.[3] Some were as young as eight years of age.[4]

The boys were taught to dismantle, clean and reassemble rifles, pistols and machine guns and are allowed to fire live ammunition. They underwent a Mau Mau-like hardening course in which each boy was required to tear apart a live chicken to develop a lust for killing.[5][6] Chants which these children, termed 'junior terrorists', had to learn and repeat included: "Oh Zionists, do you think you are safe? Drinking blood is the habit of our men" and "We are from Fatah! We have come to kill you all!"[7]

Lion Cubs – ISIS
Lion Cubs
اشبال الخلافة
Logo of ISIL
Parent organization
 Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant

The Cubs of the Caliphate (Arabic: اشبال الخلافة‎, romanized: Ashbal al-Khilafah) refers to a programme by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant to recruit and train child soldiers between the ages of 10 and 15.[8]

Overview

According to a report by the magazine Foreign Policy, children as young as six are recruited or kidnapped and sent to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant's military and religious training camps, where they practice beheading with dolls and are indoctrinated with the religious views of ISIL. Children are used as human shields on the front lines and to provide blood transfusions for Islamic State soldiers, according to Shelly Whitman of the Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative. The second installment of a Vice News documentary about ISIL focused on how the group is specifically grooming children for the future. A spokesman told VICE News that those under the age of 15 go to sharia camp to learn about religion, while those older than 16 can go to military training camp. Children are also used for propaganda.[9] According to a UN report, "In mid-August, ISIL entered a cancer hospital in Mosul, forced at least two sick children to hold the ISIL flag and posted the pictures on the internet." Misty Buswell, a Save the Children representative working with refugees in Jordan, said, "It's not an exaggeration to say we could lose a whole generation of children to trauma."[10]

On November 2014, the ISIS released a propaganda video showing children from Kazakhstan being trained with firearms. The video showed the steps of the boys’ training and emphasized the “holy-warrior” image of ISIS by showing the boys recite the verses from the Quran and declaring war against the “unbelievers.”—"I will be the one who slaughters you, O kuffar (non-believer). I will be a mujahid, insha'Allah (God willing.)”.[11] After the video had been released, the National Security Committee of Kazakhstan stated that at least 300 Kazakh citizens have moved to Syria to join the ISIS. Most were from underdeveloped villages and women were included in that number as well.

Sub-units
  • Putera Khilafa (Princes of the Caliphate) – Southeast Asian child soldier unit, active in ISIL's al-Barakah Province by 2016[12][13]

See also

References
  1. Philip Seib, Dana M. Janbek: Global Terrorism and New Media: The Post-Al Qaeda Generation, 2010 p.6
  2. Peter W. Singer: Facing Saddam’s Child Soldiers. Tuesday, January 14, 2003. Brookings institute Iraq has also organized several child soldier units. Some of these units fall under the rubric of the Futuwah (Youth Vanguard) movement, a Ba’ath party organ formed in the late 1970s and aimed at establishing a paramilitary organization among children at secondary school level. In this regime-run program, children as young as 12 are organized into units and receive military training and political indoctrination. Units of this force were even pressed into service during the nadir of Iraqi fortunes in the war against Iran (in the mid-1980s). The most important Iraqi child soldier units, though, are the Ashbal Saddam (Saddam Lion Cubs). This is a more recent organization, formed after the defeat in the 1991 Gulf War, when the regime’s hold on power faltered. The Ashbal Saddam involve boys between the ages of 10 and 15, who attend military training camps and learn the use of small arms and infantry tactics. The camps involve as much as 14 hours per day of military training and political indoctrination. They also employ training techniques intended to desensitize the youth to violence, including frequent beatings and deliberate cruelty to animals. The exact numbers of the Ashbal Saddam are not known, but there are an estimated 8,000 members in Baghdad alone.
  3. Arab Commando Attacks. By Henry J Taylor. Lewiston Evening Journal, Apr 28, 1969, 3 Daily Press from Newport News, Virginia, April 28, 1969, p.11 Baby Tigers - The State Department finds that such leaders as Arafat, Shukairy and Habeche talk of "fighting for 20 or so years." They even have training camps for 12-year-old youths, a expanding cadre called Baby Tigers.
  4. Newsweek - Volume 74, Issues 18-26 - Page 42 - 1969 When Al Fatah opened training camps for 8- to 15-year-old "Lion Cubs" last spring, the response was immediate. Now, on playgrounds of Palestinian refugee camps, Yasir Arafat's young lions— many of them dressed in cut-down combat ...
  5. John Laffin, Fedayeen; the Arab-Israeli Dilemma, Free Press, 1973 pp.96-97
  6. Arms Control and Disarmament: A Quarterly Bibliography with Abstracts and Annotations, Volume 6. Library of Congress. Arms Control and Disarmament Bibliography. 1969, p.420 ...one unit, the Lion Cubs, for boys ten to fourteen, instills a blood lust by making recruits tear live chickens apart
  7. Keith Campbell: Children of the Storm: The Abuse of Children for the Promotion of the Revolution, Lone Tree Publications, 1987,p.6
  8. Horgan, John; Bloom, Mia (8 July 2015). "This Is How the Islamic State Manufactures Child Militants". VICE News. Vice Media. Retrieved 28 November 2019.
  9. Sommerville, Quentin; Dalati, Riam (August 2017). "An education in terror". BBC News Online. BBC Online. BBC. Retrieved 28 November 2019.
  10. Brannan, Kate (24 October 2014). "Children of the Caliphate". Foreign Policy Magazine. Retrieved 30 November 2014.
  11. Michel, Casey (19 January 2015). "Kazakhstan Responds to Horrifying – and Strange – ISIS Video". The Diplomat. Retrieved 28 November 2019.
  12. Remy Mahzam (6 July 2016). "ISIS adds lure of children to regional propaganda campaign". The Straits Times. Retrieved 23 November 2018.
  13. Benjamin Soloway; Henry Johnson (19 May 2016). "ISIS Is Training Indonesian 'Cubs of the Caliphate' to Kill for the Cause". Foreign Policy. Retrieved 23 November 2018.
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