ISIS Showcases Training And Lessons It Provides For Children Of Arab, Uighur, Caucasus Foreign Fighters In Aleppo Province

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On November 11, 2015 the Islamic State (ISIS) information bureau in Aleppo released a 19-minute video, "Noble Youth,"^[1] via the Telegram encrypted communications app, an Islamic State blog, and other outlets,^[2] documenting training and lessons provided at a training camp in Aleppo province for children of foreign fighters from Arab countries, Turkestan, and the Caucasus.

The video, professionally edited with a soundtrack of songs praising the sons and daughters of ISIS, opens with the narrator's praise for ISIS's jihad fighters who, he says, have followed in the footsteps of the Prophet Muhammad and his Companions and emigrated from their countries to Syria and Iraq to establish an Islamic state based on the laws of Allah. He notes that these fighters have brought their children with them, so that they will follow in their path and succeed them, and that these children have become a beacon in advance of the vanguard, illuminating the path for the Islamic nation.

Against a backdrop of segments from videos of executions by burning, the narrator continues: "Allah, by means of these children, opens blind eyes and deaf ears; they carry torches of light and fire with which they burn the agents of the Crusaders, the emissaries of the Jews, and anyone tempted to betray the men of justice and God's oneness. Their fire continues to burn until it consumes, in its flames, the Crusader armies at Dabiq [the Muslim equivalent of Armageddon]. They are noble youth, unlike other youth their age, because they have chosen the path trodden by their fathers and the path trodden by the exemplary individuals who preceded their fathers. This is the path of the noble."

The video then shows children and teens, all boys, doing morning exercises on the playing field, and then jogging and playing a game of soccer with their counselors. They then eat breakfast in the dining room.

Next, Arabic-speaking boys aged four through eight are shown at a lesson in Islamic religious law, and after that is a lesson for teen boys on the use of a Kalashnikov assault rifle, led by a trainer with an Egyptian accent.

A lesson in Islamic law for Uighur-speaking boys is then shown, as well as a martial arts lesson for Uighur boys and teen boys. Some of the teens do gymnastics, including flips, on mats.

In the final part of the video, small boys from the Caucasus attend an Islamic law lesson, and boys from the Caucasus march on the playing field with an ISIS flag.

The last segment shows little Uighur girls at an Islamic law lesson.

Morning exercises on the playing field

Boys play soccer with the counselors

Masked teens learn to use a Kalashnikov rifle

Uighur boys at a lesson in Islamic law

Uighur ISIS member teaches Islamic law

Uighur ISIS member teaching Islamic law

Uighur trainer teaches Uighur teen boys martial arts

A Uighur teen does gymnastics

Trainer and Uighur boys in martial arts lesson

Little Uighur girls in lesson in Islamic law

Caucasus boys marching on playing field

Caucasus teen and boys

Group Koran study